


Old Wounds

by untouchable



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Romance, Slow Burn, aang is still the avatar but he’s old, more like enemies to friends to enemies to friends to lovers but whatev
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:33:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24883897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untouchable/pseuds/untouchable
Summary: For a short time, Zuko and Katara grow up together in the South Pole. Six years later, she receives a marriage proposal.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 227
Kudos: 578





	1. Raindrop and Sparky

**Author's Note:**

> Another Zutara arranged marriage AU? Yeah. Welcome to the Avatar renaissance, baby!

Katara is eleven when a boy of Fire is abandoned on the shore of the South Pole. She watches, hidden, as the soldiers drop the unconscious boy into the snow. Even from a distance, she can see that one side of his face is badly burned. He doesn’t move. 

She ducks as the faceless Fire Nation soldiers survey the barren landscape, the ice-covered rock keeping her safe from their view. Katara remembers what happened to her mother the last time a ship like that came to her land—it replays in her nightmares every night, the memories fading and blurring with age but no less gut-wrenching. She holds her breath and remains very still. She counts to a hundred and then peeks back toward the waterline. 

The soldiers, with their skull masks and ominous black cloaks, the shades of red in their armor so out of place among the blue and white of the South Pole, have returned to the large warship. The ship begins to move, cutting through the waves. It gets smaller and smaller, and Katara glances back to the boy, the one they’ve left behind. 

Once the ship has vanished into the horizon, she stands up. Her legs ache from crouching for so long, and she hesitates for a moment, unsure of what to do. Her instinct is to get Sokka, but she’s a ways away from the tribe on account of her trying to find a secluded place to secretly practice waterbending. Master Pakku, who came to the Southern Water Tribe to lead after Chief Hakoda, Katara’s father, went to war, forbids girls from learning how to bend. It infuriates Katara, especially since she’s the only one in the Southern Tribe, girl or otherwise, that is a waterbender. But Pakku insists on his outdated approaches, and, much as she hates it, the tribe needs him. Without Pakku, Gran-Gran, who has been bed-ridden with an unknown illness for the last few months, and Sokka, who is only thirteen, would have to take care of everyone. 

So Katara keeps the peace and bites her tongue when it comes to Pakku’s sexist attitudes on the role of women in the tribe and all the dumb reasons why he won’t teach her, and, when she can, she sneaks off to practice on her own. Which is what she was doing when she came across the soldiers and the boy.

Katara approaches him slowly. He’s sprawled out in the same position the soldiers had dropped him in, not moving, barely breathing. Concern outweighing fear, she jogs the rest of the way and drops to her knees beside his prone form. She’s surprised to see he’s only a little older than her, around the same age as her brother. There’s a strange tuft of hair on the top of his head. He’s dressed in simple black clothes that are too big for him. She takes in all of this quickly, eyes zeroing in on the scar on his face. Katara knows enough about burns to know it’s fresh. It might be her imagination, but his skin still smells smokey, charred. Burnt flesh. Her stomach twists. She takes a steadying breath. 

She puts her mitten-clad hands on his scrawny chest and shakes him. Katara’s not afraid any longer. For him to be injured like this, he must be an enemy of the Fire Nation, though with his pale skin and dark hair he appears to be from that region himself. A traitor? Why else would they burn him and dump him in the snow to die? 

Katara touches the boy’s unburned cheek. His skin is already cold. But he _is_ breathing, if only shallowly, chest rising and falling slightly, so it’s not too late. She has to do something before he freezes.

There’s no one around and it would take too long to go get help, but that’s not going to stop her. She can do this, she can figure this out. Pakku and even Sokka, as much as she loves him, don’t believe in her ability to get things done, but Katara’s mom taught her to be brave, to be strong, and that girls are every bit as good as anybody else. 

“Just hold on, okay?” Katara tells the boy. “You’re going to be all right. I’m gonna get us out of here. Just hold on.”

* * *

The sun keeps rising and setting; Zuko’s a firebender, he can feel it moving across the sky, feel the strength of his inner fire and the weakening of it depending on the sun’s whereabouts. In this half-awake, half-asleep state, he can feel other things, too. Hands on his chest, hands on his face. A group of adults that briefly murmur nearby. A girl, leaning over him, speaking to him gently. She comes to him again and again. Raindrop, he calls her in his head, because she is somehow able to make it rain into his mouth when he’s thirsty. 

Zuko doesn’t understand. He wants his mother. He wants to go home but doesn’t know where that is anymore. He sinks back into blackness.

* * *

It’s dark when Zuko opens his eyes. One eye, to be more exact—the other is covered in bandages. Memory slams into him like a fist to the gut. Tears blur the vision of his good eye.

“Mom?” he croaks, even though he knows she’s not there, will never be there again. He’s scared and he can’t help it. “Mom?”

A small figure materializes out of the shadows. He wonders if he’s dead, but figures it probably wouldn’t be so damn painful if he was. Zuko chokes back a sob.

“My name is Katara,” says the girl. She sounds young, even younger than his own thirteen years of age, but he can’t see well. “You’re safe here.”

She touches his arm lightly, taking her hand back when he jumps at the contact. 

“Where—?” Zuko, begins, breaking off into a hoarse cough. His mouth feels so dry, like it’s full of sand.

“Wait here,” Katara instructs him, and it matches that faraway voice that cut through the nightmarish haze of his mind when he’d been immobile, giving him momentary comfort as he slipped in and out of darkness. 

Zuko remembers vague flashes of her, a round face against the glaring afternoon sun, ocean blue eyes and dark skin, and a sweet, worried smile. Raindrop. Katara. 

He takes a deep breath. “It’s not like I can really go anywhere.”

The tears have cleared away and his good eye has adjusted to the dimness. He can see now that he’s in an igloo, the doorway blocked with furs to keep out the cold. He seems to be laid out on furs as well. He’s shocked at how warm he is, despite the snowy floor and the surrounding blocks of ice. 

Katara appears beside him once more. She has a pot of water in her hands. He’s preparing his aching body to sit up and take a sip when she glances once to the door, then scoots closer to him on the ground with a shy smile. In the dark, her eyes are impossibly blue.

Remembering, he gets what she’s about to do and parts his cracked lips. She bends a mouthful of water into the air and over his face. However, before it can reach the intended destination, the ball of water falters. It explodes apart, wetting his face and neck. 

She lets out a noise of frustration, muttering, “I thought I had it that time.”

Zuko understands now that the spray he’d felt on his tongue when he’d been mostly unconscious had been her failed attempt to bend a full mouthful of water to him. He cracks a smile. It almost hurts, whether from the unfamiliar motion or from jostling his bandaged eye he doesn’t know, but it feels sort of good at the same time. Something in his chest starts to unravel. 

“It’s all right, Raindrop,” he tells her because she looks sad and he doesn’t want her to be. 

She starts to giggle. “I think you still have a fever. My name’s Katara.”

“I like ‘Raindrop’ better.”

She bites her lip to stifle the laugher still threatening to tumble from her lips. “Okay, _Sparky_.”

“‘Sparky’?” he splutters.

“There were sparks coming from your fingertips earlier,” she replies. “I think you were having a nightmare.”

The good humor leaves Zuko immediately. He looks away from her, up at the sloped ceiling of the igloo. Shame blazes painfully in his stomach. 

_He should have just killed me_ , Zuko thinks. _Father should have just finished the job._ He remembers Azula’s mocking whisper: _“Dad’s going to kill you.”_ He remembers thinking that Ozai, though cold and cruel, would never go so far as to hurt his own family. He remembers a time later, staring in horror up at his father, realizing it was him he would be facing in the Agni Kai. He remembers refusing to fight. He remembers thinking that it was the right choice, the only choice, to avoid the chance of hurting someone he loved. He also remembers the indescribable pain as Ozai melted the side of his face off, and then, somehow worse, the haunting absence of pain in certain places as the nerves were destroyed; all through it, Zuko screamed and screamed until his voice went raw.

That’s why his throat hurts so bad. He’s not sure how long it took for them to take him to the South Pole, or how long he’s been out of it in Katara’s care, but the Agni Kai feels like yesterday. Zuko closes his eyes and he’s right back there, confused and humiliated and vulnerable before his father, before his family, before the entire Fire Nation. It’s too much. _“The prince has fallen,”_ one of the guards said as Zuko lay cradling his face, and he knew that they weren’t just talking about his position on the ground. It was one of them that cut off his ponytail, symbolizing his removal from the line of succession and from the royal family. Those words echo in his head now, over and over. _“The prince has fallen.”_

“Did I say something insensitive? Usually, it’s Sokka that does that.”

Zuko closes his good eye and pretends to be asleep. 

“You don’t have to tell me what’s bothering you, but will you tell me your name?” Katara implores, poking his shoulder.

When he does nothing, she sighs. He hears her get to her feet and the rustling of her thick parka as she moves toward the door. 

“Zuko,” he whispers roughly, hoping she can hear. “My name is Zuko.”

There’s silence for so long that he thinks she must have left, but then she returns to tuck him in, swiftly pecking his cheek.

“Sleep well, Sparky.”

* * *

It’s several months later when another Fire Nation ship arrives.

In that time, Zuko has recovered well. Katara can’t help feeling proud of herself. Gran-Gran and Pakku said, when she first dragged Zuko into their village, that if the stranger was to stay with them then he was to be her responsibility. Even with no healing teacher around, Katara used her limited abilities and the more mundane methods her mother taught her to chase his fever away, to mend the broken rib—a result, she thought grimly, of someone kicking Zuko in the abdomen—and to speed the mending of his injured eye. With how much of a novice she is, she couldn’t heal his burnt skin completely away, and Katara suspects that even the most talented of healers would be unable to; the damage goes too deep. 

Now, Zuko’s up and walking around as if he wasn’t half-dead when she found him. He’s still evasive and moody and quiet, and he has nightmares that have him crying into his hands, trying to soften the sound so she and Sokka don’t hear from the other side of the igloo. Sometimes, on bad nights, when her own ghosts plague her, Katara crawls across the ground with her furs and nestles in beside Zuko, throwing an arm across his middle until he stops shaking. 

They don’t talk about it during the day. Katara isn’t sure why she wants to. 

It’s really nice, having a friend that’s not related to her. Zuko sits beside her at communal dinners and hunts with Sokka and the littler boys, and after so many weeks, it’s difficult to imagine the tribe without him. Even Master Pakku is starting to like him.

Zuko doesn’t talk about what happened to him or why he was forced to the South Pole, but Katara still has her suspicions about him being a traitor, maybe a spy that got caught, though he’s only thirteen. She also has suspicions about him being a firebender. But he’s never tried to hurt her or anyone in the tribe, and he hasn’t spilled her secret about practicing waterbending without Pakku’s permission, so Katara doesn’t really care if Zuko’s fingers spark sometimes when he’s angry or if his tea stays hotter longer than the rest of theirs. 

His hair has started to grow out. He was bald except for the tuft on the top of his head when she found him, but now he has a couple of inches of shaggy dark hair hanging into his golden eyes, and he’s begun to smile a lot more, joining in on Sokka’s jokes, and Katara’s stomach does this odd, swooping thing when Zuko looks over at her, laughter lighting up his face. 

She’s never had a crush before. 

The younger girls of the tribe have also noticed Zuko, but Katara is the one who found him, so she figures she has dibs. To her eleven-year-old mind, ‘finders keepers’ is a sacred rule that can never be broken. 

And then the ship comes. 

Sokka, in war paint and with boomerang in hand, stands beside Master Pakku as Fire Nation soldiers march into the village. Zuko and Katara were in the middle of gutting fish when the soldiers came. The knife remains clutched in Zuko’s bare hand. Katara places her own over it.

Even in Water Tribe clothes, his furry hood up and a blue parka, Zuko’s pale face gives him away. As a result of hunting with Sokka, being out for hours and hours on the ice which reflects the sun, he’s tanner than he’d been months ago, but still nowhere as dark as Katara and the rest of her people naturally are. Still, she considers him one of her own now. She won’t let these soldiers take him.

She tries to tell him this with her eyes, but Zuko isn’t looking at her. He’s staring hard at the soldiers who have started to converse with Sokka and Pakku. She can tell, even through the layers he wears, that every muscle in Zuko’s body is tense, ready for a fight.

Pakku looks over his shoulder, finding them in the crowd, and points right at Zuko.

Katara steps forward. She may be small and her waterbending hasn’t improved much, but she has already decided that she will battle these soldiers if she has to. But then Zuko puts a hand on her shoulder. She squints up at him, shocked to find that he seems...relieved?

“Uncle Iroh?”

The soldiers part and Katara can now see that Pakku is talking to a jolly big-bellied old man in red robes. Zuko runs toward the man, leaving Katara’s side. 

“That’s Fire Lord Iroh to you,” she hears him exclaim cheerfully, drawing Zuko into a hug. “Good to see you, my boy!”

Sokka looks about as confused and frustrated as Katara feels. “What are you going to do to him?” Sokka demands, crossing his arms and looking about as intimidating as a twelve-year-old can make himself.

“Do to him? Oh, no, you misunderstand! I’ve only come to retrieve my nephew here, not punish him. I’ve been looking all over the South Pole.” Iroh turns to Zuko. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you,” he says, so soft Katara has to strain to hear.

“Fire Lord Ozai is dead?” Pakku asks, dumb-founded.

Several gasps are heard from the surrounding crowd.

“Yes,” Iroh confirms, gaze still on Zuko. “After what he did to you, I knew I had to do something. With the Avatar’s help, I defeated him. I’ve been out looking for you ever since, hoping that you’d survived somehow. I want you home, Prince Zuko.”

Prince Zuko? Katara’s head is spinning. She keeps waiting for Zuko to say something, anything, to tell the old man he’s got the wrong boy. There are probably lots of Zukos in the Fire Nation, named in honor of the crowned prince, right? That must be it, Katara reasons. This Iroh guy has got it all wrong. His Zuko is somewhere else. _Her_ Zuko is, any second now, about to say something about this mistake. 

_“Uncle Iroh,”_ he’d called the man only a minute prior. Uncle. Katara’s heart drops into her stomach. 

She doesn’t hear anything else that’s said. There’s a buzzing in her ears. She can’t believe what’s happening, can’t believe that last night she was snuggled next to the heir to the Fire Nation, whose father is responsible for _killing_ her _mother._ She’s been such a fool.

Katara runs, tripping over her own feet as she dashes between tents and igloos, bending her way over the tribe’s wall. She hears footsteps behind her, someone calling her name, but she’s faster and she knows these lands. Katara runs until she’s no longer being chased and she keeps running, her breathing ragged, the tears frozen on her cheeks, her back slick with sweat under her parka. Alone and out of breath, she sinks down to the snow and wraps her arms around her knees.


	2. The Proposal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the response to the first chapter! Y'all are the best. Also, I hope you don't mind, but I'm extending the chapter count. This story is growing way bigger than I planned. Let me know your input!

Katara is seventeen when Gran-Gran receives a letter from Fire Lord Iroh. 

Master Pakku recently coaxed a healing teacher to come down from the North Pole, and, with help, Katara’s finally been able to aid Gran-Gran in getting over the enduring infection in her lungs that’s hindered her for years. Since she’s still not allowed to waterbend, and has been watched very closely by Pakku since the incident where she bended her way over the tribe’s walls to flee Zuko, healing is as close to something important as Katara is able to do around here. 

She’s restless. Gran-Gran is the only one who notices. 

They’re sewing together when Gran-Gran is given the letter by a messenger. Since Iroh took control of the throne and made peace with all of the nations, there’s a steady flow of trade going to and from the South Pole. Once a week, ships from the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation come with foreign foods and trinkets to barter with, and a ship of mail comes as well. 

Katara pretends not to notice the royal seal of Fire as Gran-Gran reads. Over the years, Zuko has written her dozens of letters. She hasn’t opened any of them. She should just burn them, but she keeps them in a stack, hidden at the bottom of her trunk of clothes where Sokka won’t be able to stumble upon them. 

“The Fire Lord says that Prince Zuko hopes you’re well,” Gran-Gran says, interrupting her whirlwind of thoughts.

Katara slips and accidentally stabs the side of her thumb with the needle. She stares numbly at the spot of blood that appears.

“He should just write to me himself if he cares about my wellbeing,” she grumbles.

It’s an idiotic thing to say. Gran-Gran probably knows about the stack of letters at the bottom of her trunk because Gran-Gran knows everything. 

“Are you going to be angry at him forever?”

Katara resumes sewing. Her neat stitches are descending into chaos, and her bloody thumb leaks drops of red onto Sokka’s ripped trousers.

“He lied to me, Gran-Gran. He lied to all of us! I don’t care if Iroh is making amends for what his brother did — the Fire Nation still plunged the whole world into war for a hundred years! Dad spends all his time up at the North Pole helping them rebuild. And the Water Tribes weren’t the only ones demolished in the war; aside from the Avatar and his children and grandchildren, the Air Nomad’s are extinct. And Zuko’s dad was a part of that.  _ Zuko _ was going to grow up and become a part of that.” She throws the things in her hands down and stands. She wraps her arms around her middle and turns to the corner of the tent.

Softer, she confesses, “I told him about Mom a few weeks after he came to stay with us. We both had trouble sleeping so we’d talk sometimes, and I told him about my nightmares, about what they did to her. And he never said anything! He just stared at me sadly, probably thinking that I was  _ such _ a moron that I couldn’t tell Fire Nation royalty when it was right in front of me. All that time I thought we were friends, but I bet he thought we were so backward and savage — ”

“Katara, you don’t know that.”

“He’s a prince, Gran-Gran! I thought he was like me, an outsider, but he’s a  _ prince _ !”

She thinks her grandmother is going to make an inquiry about the “outsider” comment, but, thankfully, she doesn’t.

“Remember his face? That burn? That was no accident, child, you know that as well as I do. Or you would if you opened his letters and gave him a chance. When Sokka dragged you back to the village to say goodbye, Zuko  _ tried _ to talk to you. But you refused. Remember, Katara? Zuko didn’t want to be parted from you.”

Katara turns around. Gran-Gran, from her spot on the ground among the piles of clothing that need mending, smiles gently, the wrinkles around her eyes deepening. 

“Do you hate him more for lying or for leaving?” 

She swallows around the lump in her throat. Katara doesn’t respond. 

* * *

The letter contains a marriage proposal. Katara can hardly believe her ears. 

Gran-Gran has waited until Hakoda and Sokka have returned, until the whole tribe has gathered for dinner, to tell her. It feels a little like an ambush, though the reasonable side of her brain reminds her that Gran-Gran had brought up the topic of Zuko last week while they were sewing and probably was getting to the whole proposal thing before she’d lost control of her temper. Still. 

“Iroh wants to  _ marry _ Katara?” Sokka cries.

Princess Yue, Sokka’s new bride from the North, puts a calming hand on his arm. 

Her brother has misunderstood their grandmother’s words but Katara understands perfectly.

“Zuko,” she says faintly. “He wants me to marry Zuko.”

“Yes,” Gran-Gran confirms. “The Fire Lord proposes a marriage between the prince and the chief’s daughter. Fire and Water joined together; a symbol of unity, of peace to the rest of the world.”

“A nice sentiment,” Hakoda responds, in such a manner that betrays how very  _ not _ nice he finds the whole thing. “But we don’t arrange marriages in the South,” he reminds them, and the others around the fire nod in agreement.

_ That doesn’t make you that progressive _ , Katara wants to point out to her tribe and to her father.  _ Girls still can’t learn waterbending. _ She stares down at her bowl of stew.

Yue speaks up, “They would put a girl from the Water Tribes on the throne of Fire?”

“The throne?” Sokka squeaks at his wife, eyes comically wide. “What’re you talking about, Yue?”

“Fire Lord Iroh has no living children,” Master Pakku clinically explains. “Prince Zuko is the heir to the Fire Nation throne.” He glances at Katara, his lined face unreadable. “If Katara were to marry the prince, she would one day become Fire Lady.”

Everyone turns to stare at Katara, dozens of blue eyes gazing at her in disbelief. All eating has ceased. Even the children have stopped playing, the babies stopped crying. 

Voice strong so that it will carry throughout the large igloo where the tribe takes their meals together, Gran-Gran states, “I believe she would make a magnificent Fire Lady.”

Yue reaches over Sokka to grip Katara’s hand reassuringly. “So do I.”

She’s only just met Yue, but she finds herself thankful for the light-haired princess’s tranquil presence. Katara hasn’t met another girl around her age for too long. She squeezes Yue’s fingers.

“Thank you.”

“Nobody’s saying Katara  _ wouldn’t _ make a good Fire Lady,” Sokka says, turning to his sister next to him. “But the war hasn’t been over for even a decade; there are still groups in the Fire Nation that hate other nations, that would see you, the color of your eyes and skin, and want to hurt you. It would be too dangerous!”

“Shouldn’t I get to decide that for myself?”

He blinks. “Well, yeah. That’s the whole point. Dad and I don’t want you to be forced into an arranged marriage. Right, Dad?”

Before Hakoda can open his mouth, Katara fires back, “I thought the  _ point _ was that it was too dangerous?”

“I think what your brother is trying to say is that there seem to be many reasons to reject Prince Zuko’s proposal.”

She grinds her teeth. Why is she so mad at her father and Sokka all of a sudden? It’s not like she’s actually considering marriage to Zuko...right? No, no definitely not. But they don’t even care about what she thinks about the matter. They’re acting like it’s already decided that she’ll say no. Which, yeah, makes sense. Why would Katara marry some boy she knew (or thought she knew) years ago, aside from the whole peace and unity thing? 

“Do you  _ want _ to marry Zuko?” Sokka asks, suddenly curious. He’s studying the side of her face as she refuses to look at him. “You don’t like to talk about him now, but I remember how much you liked him when he stayed with us.”

“I want…”

Katara doesn’t know what she wants. But she wants more than this, that’s for sure. She loves her tribe and her family and the South Pole, but she has dreams of traveling, of learning how to waterbend, of figuring out who she really is when she’s not being what other people want her to be.

“I think she should accept,” Master Pakku gives his opinion. He continues spooning stew into his mouth and doesn’t return Katara’s questioning glance.

“I agree,” Gran-Gran heartily announces.

“As do I,” Yue remarks, giving Sokka an apologetic look. “I was told not to marry  _ you _ ,” she tells him, “so be careful what you say, husband.”

“But what about you, Katara?” her father asks. “What do  _ you _ decide? Will you accept Prince Zuko’s marriage proposal?”

For a moment, she’s eleven again and Zuko is snoring next to her in the dark. Her memory of his face is hazy; she remembers only pale skin and dark hair and golden eyes. But how she felt those nights snuggled together in the furs is vivid enough to choke her. Later, in further discussion with her father and her brother, she tells them she wants to do good in the world, to help people, to be a symbol of peace after so much war. But, right now, Katara only thinks about how she’d pressed her forehead to Zuko’s tunic between his shoulder blades, breathed in his smokey scent, and drifted into a dreamless sleep as he whispered to her a story about dragons.

She straightens up to address her people, lifting her chin. “Yes,” she says firmly. Her voice is strong and clear. “I will accept.”

* * *

Gran-Grans writes Iroh. Katara packs her things. 

She takes all her clothes, even though she won’t need them in the heat. She has a vague idea of what the Fire Nation is like from stories and the trading people she meets, but, unlike her father and brother, she has never been anywhere but the South Pole. She can’t really blame Hakoda or Sokka or even Master Pakku for this. Katara was invited on the trip to the North Pole to rebuild the ice city there, the trip where Sokka met and wed Yue. She declined the offer to go on account of her being the mother figure for many of the Southern Tribe’s children, their only healer, and, at the time and until recently, Gran-Gran was very ill. Katara has always felt unable to leave, tied down. A little suffocated, even though she feels guilty for thinking it. But Gran-Gran is healthy again, able to once more act as the matriarch of the tribe, and, since the healing teacher Pakku sent for is still living here in the South, everyone should be taken care of. 

Sokka watches her fold and put her fur-lined parkas, trousers, tunics, underwrappings, and her one blue dress into her trunk. 

“You don’t have to do this, you know that right?”

Katara pauses as she’s packing her extra hair beads. She looks over her shoulder at her brother. He’s eighteen now, brawny and broad, but the way he looks at her — full of love even as he thinks she’s being dumb — is still the same.

“I know. I’m choosing to.”

“For the world or for you?”

She thinks about this. “For me,” she says, and wonders if that’s the right answer. She supposes it doesn’t really matter if it’s right or wrong; it’s the truth.

Sokka nods. “Good.”

Days later, after she’s all packed and Gran-Gran gets another letter from Iroh that confirms her engagement to Zuko, Sokka pulls his sister into a spontaneous hug.

He whispers to her, low enough that only she can hear, “There’s a whole world out there. You deserve to see all of it. You deserve to be happy, Katara.”

Her eyes sting. She hugs him back as tightly as she can. “I love you, Sokka.”

“I love you more, little sister. 

* * *

With Iroh’s letter to Gran-Gran is an engagement gift for Katara. As they set sail for a long voyage to the Fire Nation, the box sits beside Katara’s trunk of measly possessions as she waves goodbye to Sokka, Yue, Gran-Gran, and the rest of her tribe. In a month's time, her family will travel to the Fire Nation Capital for her wedding. For now, only Hakoda and a few of his men are with her as her escort. 

As the village vanishes into the distance, all at once, dread seizes Katara. For the time being, she’s leaving behind all she’s ever known. She’s going to be  _ married _ in a month. It fully sinks in, making her dizzy.

Seventeen is the usual age when a girl from the Southern Water Tribes gets married, but during the war, there were no boys her age in her tribe, and even though they returned six years ago, she can’t see herself romantically with any of them. There was Jet, the first and only boy she’s ever kissed, who came passing through on a trading ship a year ago — if he had a vague resemblance to a certain someone, Katara tried not to think about that, and it’s definitely not what drew her to him in the first place — but other than that brief encounter, there’s been no one. Despite being the right age, marriage has been far from her mind. Until now. 

Inside her small cabin room below deck, Katara eyes the intricate wooden box. A gift from Zuko, said Iroh’s letter, but she suspects it’s probably just the customary piece of jewelry that every woman who marries into the royal family receives. She pops the clasp, opens the lid, expecting something gold and gaudy that would feed a starving family for weeks. Instead, simple purple hair beads sit on a red cushion. They’re the exact same size and shape as her usual blue ones. How…? Did Zuko remember?

Katara’s are made from clay and painted, but these, she realizes, are glass. She holds them up so they catch the light. From the slight imperfections in the shape, she assumes they’re handmade. Nevertheless, they’re beautiful. She wonders where he got them from. 

For the first time, she lets herself agonize over seeing Zuko again. Will he be glad to see her? Or has his uncle forced him into this, into choosing a foreign bride and her name was just the first to pop into his head? Does she even want him to be glad to see her? So many questions.

Katara looks over at her trunk. At the bottom, his letters are still there, all unopened. She could — _ should _ — read them, if only for clarity about the situation she’s walking into, right? She doesn’t move. Anger and fear mix with something else she can’t name. Her feelings are untangleable. Is she ready to let go of this grudge she’s been holding onto since he left the South Pole six years ago? Is she ready to forgive him? Is there even anything to forgive? She doesn’t know anymore. 

Katara has the distinct impression that if she does let her anger go toward Zuko, another emotion, something warm and confusing and terrifying, will replace it, and she’s not sure if she’s prepared for that. 

She leaves the stack of letters untouched. On the last day of the voyage, before the ship docks at the Fire Nation Capital, Katara puts the purple beads in her hair.


	3. The Arrival

A swarm of royal guards is waiting for Katara as she disembarks the ship. Their greeting is stiff and lifeless, eyes surveying the surrounding area. She isn’t sure what they’re looking for; there’s no one around but them. Instead of the crowded harbor at the center of the city, the ship was instructed, last minute, to come to shore at a private dock closer to the palace. With haste, the guards usher Katara and her father and their tribesman onto mongoose lizards. On the strange creatures, in the large saddle behind Hakoda, she clutches onto the leather strap that’s supposed to keep her in place as they rise to their full height. Heart pounding, Katara holds on as the mongoose lizards slither up the grassy hill. 

As they ride to the palace, she keeps her face down, hidden behind her father’s shoulder. A sick feeling is spreading into her stomach. She’s made a terrible mistake. 

Katara certainly hadn’t expected a parade or anything, but it would have been nice for Iroh and Zuko to show up and greet her in person. Not this...whatever this is. The guards are tense and silent, and it’s making her so nervous that she can’t even enjoy the new landscape she’s seeing, all the grass and flowers and trees that are familiar in theory but actually so new to her. Still, all the pretty flowers in the world aren’t worth feeling like a sack of potatoes being hauled around, like a thing that’s being retrieved and about to be presented to the royal family. Is that what she is? Just a new object for the prince of Fire to hold up in order to tangibly show that the war is over and that the Fire Nation no longer discriminates against people of other nations? 

_“Look,”_ she imagines Zuko saying, _“I married a savage girl, a Water Tribe peasant. See? See my sacrifice? We really do want peace.”_

She’d known that their union being a symbol of international unity was part of the reason the marriage was proposed in the first place, it was part of the reason why she’d agreed, but there was another part of Katara that hoped—

As they reach the palace, she tries to get herself under control. _This is still a good idea_ , she tells herself. _I’ll be able to meet new people, make a real difference in the world. I’ll be able to travel and maybe find a waterbending teacher. This is still my chance at freedom._

Hakoda helps her down from the saddle, and, before she can take in the grandeur of the palace before her, the guards are whisking them inside like they’re being chased. Katara had assumed that it was only Zuko, as a result of being abandoned and whatever trauma resulted in his injuries when she found him, who could be so stony and serious, but maybe it’s just a Fire Nation thing. Her parents taught her to be accepting of other cultures, so she tries not to judge their oddness.

Before she knows it, their group has ended up in a courtyard garden in the center of the palace.

“You should be safe here,” one of the guards tells Hakoda. “The Fire Lord will meet you shortly.”

“Safe?” Amak, one of the tribesmen in her escort party, whispers to his brother, Purnaq, who shrugs uneasily.

“Wait,” Katara calls after the guard that seems to be in charge. “What about Zuko?”

“Prince Zuko has been detained. I’m sure he will be disappointed to have missed your arrival.”

With that, most of the guards run off, leaving four behind. As if choreographed, they back against the stone walls of the garden, one on each corner. Their eyes flick from the members of the Southern Water Tribe to the sky to the two open doorways and back again, over and over. 

“I suppose it’s to be expected that the Fire Nation has...different customs from us on how to treat guests,” Hakoda breaks the silence.

Katara lets out an unladylike snort. “By ‘different customs,’ do you mean dragging us around and shepherding us into a courtyard like animals?”

“Yeah,” Purnaq pipes up. “I thought we’d be honored guests.” He gestures to Katara. “I mean, come on, she’s the future Fire Lady!” 

At present, Katara is desperate to avoid any talk of her future, so she wanders over to the fountain. She’s in her only dress, a long shapeless tunic of light blue fabric. It’s the breeziest thing she owns and yet she’s still sweating a little, unused to the sweltering heat. The water calls to her. She wishes she could rip her dress off and splash in the fountain. 

Instead of embarrassing herself, she sits on the edge and dips her hand in the water. Soon, her attention is drawn toward one of the archways leading back into the palace as the guards bow.

Fire Lord Iroh steps into the courtyard garden. She distantly remembers how cheerful and carefree Iroh had been when he’d come to collect Zuko from her village. None of that is present on his face currently. She knows now that something is very wrong.

To everyone’s surprise, Iroh bows to them, a sign of immense respect. “My apologies for keeping all of you waiting, Chief Hakoda. It is an honor to have you on the shores of our nation.” 

Iroh turns to Katara, and there is something of the twinkle in his eyes that she remembers. “Katara, look at how you’ve grown! I shouldn’t be so surprised—a rosebud always turns into a rose, yes? We are delighted to have you here. I hope that you will refer to me as ‘Uncle,’ if it suits you.”

It’s hard to be cross with such a nice old man, but she forces herself to cross her arms and press her lips into an unforgiving line. “Where’s Zuko, then? And what’s with the way we were brought here? I would’ve liked to have walked through the city, seen the sights.”

Hakoda makes to scold his daughter on her manners but Iroh holds up a hand. 

“She speaks her mind, a trait I admire.” Iroh puts his hands into the sleeves of his red robes. Even in such regal attire, with the headpiece of the Fire Lord in his topknot, Iroh looks immeasurably tired. “Zuko, I’m afraid, is unable to join us for dinner.”

At the mention of food, her stomach growls, but she ignores it.

“Why’s that?”

“My nephew wishes to tell you himself. I swore I would leave it up to him. But understand that he absolutely would be here if he could.”

It sounds like a pile of polar dog shit to Katara. He’s probably hiding away somewhere, trying to avoid her for as long as possible. _Zuko doesn’t want me here_ , she realizes. It hurts more than it should. 

* * *

After dinner, she’s shown to her bedroom. After the wedding, Iroh tells her, she’ll be relocated to the suite connected to Zuko’s room. For now, she’ll reside in the guest wing across the hall from her father. She waves off the gaggle of maids and insists on unpacking her own things, but, even after the dismissal, one of the women, a girl barely older than Katara, lingers.

“I’m Emia,” she introduces herself, bowing. “I’ve been told not to leave your side today.”

“I don’t need protection,” Katara replies, crossing her arms. “Besides, there are guards right out in the hall.”

Emia gives her an apologetic look but doesn’t move from her spot in the open doorway. Katara sighs. She thought leaving home would get her more freedom, not a babysitter.

“Well, if you’re here, you might as well help me unpack.”

Emia perks up. Her long braid bounces as she quickly joins Katara inside the room. “Great! I’ve been training to be a lady’s maid, I promise I won’t let you down, Lady Katara.”

Katara’s not sure how you can let someone down when it comes to putting away clothes, but Emia seems to take it very seriously, so she lets the other girl do her thing. At first, she’s a bit troubled and maybe even embarrassed at Emia touching her trunk of measly possessions, but if Emia judges her for not having fine silks and gems, the maid doesn’t show it. She chatters away, taking out Katara’s tunics and trousers and underwrappings, refolding them, and putting them in the large dresser. She hangs the parkas and outerwear in the closet. 

“You have an appointment with a dressmaker in a few days,” Emia happily relates. “You’ll need things better suited for the warm weather. And dresses! I _love_ getting new dresses.”

Katara’s never worn something that either she or her mother or Gran-Gran haven’t made themselves. She doesn’t know how to feel about this. Though, she reasons, it would be nice to have a set of lighter clothing to ward off the heat. Logically, this makes sense. Emotionally, Katara’s inside out and upside down. Everything is going to change now, she realizes. It already has changed. 

She wonders, _What in the name of La and Tui am I doing?_

Over the dresser where Emia is putting clothes and still talking away, is a mirror. Katara sees herself in it, sitting at the foot of the bed. There aren’t many mirrors in the South Pole; she hasn’t looked in one in several years. She’s seen her reflection only in glimpses in the water. Instead of the frightened girl she expects to see, she meets the blue gaze of a determined young woman. 

_I can do this._

“What are these?” Emia wants to know. She’s holding up Zuko’s letters.

Katara wants to smack herself. She’d forgotten all about those when she’d agreed to let the maid unpack her trunk.

She feels her cheeks grow pink. “Nothing! There’re just...from Zuko.”

“Ah. Love letters.”

Katara’s too shocked to argue. Emia puts the letters back in the empty trunk.

“It’s so horrible what happened to him,” she sighs dramatically.

Katara fingers the purple beads in her hair. “You mean his scar?”

“No, no. I mean what happened _today_.”

There must be a blank look on Katara’s face because Emia lifts her hand to her mouth. 

“You mean you don’t know?”

“Clearly not.” Katara sits up, heartbeat quickening, hands fisting handfuls of the bedspread beneath her. She knew earlier that something was wrong. “What happened, Emia?”

The maid glances over to her, then at the open door. She goes to shut it before quickly settling herself on the bed next to Katara. “I hate to gossip,” she says, in such a way that Katara now knows she loves to gossip, “and they’re telling people not to spread the news around, but you deserve to know. In the kitchen, they’re saying something bad happened to Prince Zuko in the city today. An assassination attempt.”

* * *

When Emia leaves for the night, she instructs Katara to stay in her room and to leave under absolutely no circumstances. Katara likes Emia, she does. She seems to be a good lady’s maid, is easy to talk to, and is plugged into the rumor mill around the palace, which is useful. Still, she only waits fifteen minutes after Emia’s gone before cracking open the door to her bedroom. She doesn’t want Emia to get in trouble but Katara’s started her new life as a person who does things and she’s not going to be cooped up in her room when she wants answers. 

There are guards patrolling the hallways in pairs. She watches the shadows move under her door and calculates their timing. During a lull when the hall is quiet and the guards should be elsewhere for a few more minutes, she sneaks out.

She is about to knock on her father’s door when she stops herself. Should she tell Hakoda about what the maid told her? What if Emia received false information? An attempt on the crowned prince’s life would explain all the craziness earlier in the day, but she doesn’t want to worry her dad with this until she’s sure.

Katara tip-toes around the corner, exiting the guest wing. 

Iroh took them on a brief tour of the palace before dinner, showing off all three courtyard gardens and the library and the art gallery. Where were the places he didn’t show? One of those must be where Zuko is. But then again, she’s assuming he’s in his bedroom. What if he’s with a healer somewhere? Is he even in the palace? She figures he is, that it would be the safest place for him, but she truly doesn’t know.

At the sound of footsteps, Katara ducks behind a tapestry. She hears female voices, ears perking up when she catches Zuko’s name. When she peeks out to see, it’s two women carrying trays with unfamiliar bottles that pass her. On a whim, she follows them at a distance, having to hide in darkened alcoves or behind tapestries occasionally when guards appear.

Finally, the women lead her to a secluded part of the palace, and Katara is surprised to see Iroh pacing in front of a closed door. They bow to him.

“He isn’t any better,” the Fire Lord says. The anguish in his voice carries to her hiding spot behind a leafy plant. The sound breaks her heart. Iroh says something else but Katara doesn’t quite catch it.

“You won’t lose him. He’ll get there, give him time. The prince is resilient.”

Iroh nods. He follows the two female servants with trays into the room and closes the door. 

Katara remains in her cramped position behind the plant. She has her confirmation of what happened to Zuko, though the details remain ambiguous. She should really go back to her room, lock the door, and try to get some sleep. She’s got a lot of thinking to do tomorrow, about whether she wants to stay here when, apparently, people are trying to kill off the royal family, a family which she’ll be marrying into in a month. Sokka was right about the danger. 

But Katara is no coward. And she doesn’t want to sleep. She wants to see Zuko. It’s been six years, and, for better or for worse, she can’t wait another day.

It’s not too long until the two servants depart the prince’s bedroom. Katara stays behind the plant a little longer to see if Iroh will come out, but, she reasons, perhaps there’s another exit in Zuko’s room? She straightens up, dashing to the door before a round of guards catches her out of her room. Her breathing seems absurdly loud in her ears as she twists the golden doorknob and slips into the dark room. 

It’s incredibly hot inside, prickling her skin uncomfortably. The source of heat is the roaring fire in the marble fireplace by which, slouched in an armchair, is Zuko’s uncle. Iroh is fast asleep, snoring so loud it’s a wonder he doesn’t wake up the whole city. Past the sitting area and a balcony showing a slice of the night sky is a giant bed draped in red. Normally, she likes the color red. It’s not as pretty as blue, of course, but red is a nice color, full of warmth and power. But now, looking at the pale man struggling to breathe in the middle, it reminds her of pain. Of blood.

She stands at the edge of the bed. Though slumbering, the man is clearly hurt. His brow is sweaty and furrowed, drawn together in a deep frown even in sleep. On the ornate table beside the bed, there are several cloths with red splotches on them, like he’s been coughing up blood. 

For an unknowable amount of time, Katara can only stare. To her, he is both familiar and unfamiliar, the boy she once knew and a man she’s never met.

There’s water in a dish on the bedside table. She bends it into her hands, pressing her palms against Zuko’s chest and closes her eyes. She’d assumed a stabbing, maybe one that nicked his lung to cause the trouble breathing, but she doesn’t feel anything like that, no signs of outward penetration. There’s something else though, something attacking him from the inside. Katara concentrates on the pulsing knot of chi in his belly. She’s seen this before, to a lesser extent. He’s eaten something bad, like when Sokka drank cactus juice from an Earth Kingdom trader, but much worse. Zuko couldn’t have naturally consumed enough of a toxic plant or rotten meat to make him this ill, to have his chi be so disturbed. Poison. Someone’s poisoned him.

Zuko moans. Katara stills, hoping he doesn’t wake up. He settles, muttering something that might be that stupid nickname he gave her all those years ago. Raindrop. Katara swallows, ignoring it and continuing to heal him as much as she can. 

She’s untangled much of the strain on the chi of Zuko’s stomach when she feels someone approaching. It’s only Iroh, having woken up from his nap to check on his nephew. He smiles at her gently. Katara’s cheeks heat up as she jumps to her feet, feeling caught somehow, even though she’s not doing anything indecent. 

“I was just—”

“Healing him. It’s all right, my dear. I just had no idea you were a waterbender.”

 _I’m not_ , she bitterly thinks.

“He’s been poisoned, if you didn’t already know,” Katara replies in a rush. “I did as much as I can.”

Iroh’s eyes look a bit wet. “I cannot thank you enough for saving him. Again.”

She bows clumsily. With one look over her shoulder to Zuko, she flees the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, their actual reunion is in the next chapter! Thank you for all the great comments! I'm still writing the end of the story so if you have any ideas or thinks you want to see, leave suggestions in a comment and I'll consider them as I'm writing. Thanks for reading x


	4. A Peace Offering

For the next week, Zuko remains bedridden and unconscious. He’s being given some kind of Fire Nation medicine, one she’s not familiar with, that makes him sleep constantly, so there’s no use in visiting, though Iroh does approach her several times to see if she wants to go to him. Despite the concern still evident in the old man’s features, Iroh tells her that Zuko’s rapidly improving; it seems she’s nursed him back from the brink of death for a second time. 

Each time he asks, she responds to Iroh that, since Zuko’s healing on his own now, there’s no reason for her to visit him. Katara has her own reasons for wanting to avoid Zuko, and she doesn’t examine them too closely. 

She’s spent years thinking she hated him, years despising his lies about his family and his connection to her mother’s death, despising how he’d left her so suddenly and without even a backward glance of regret. She was only a means to an end to him, a way to survive, while he’d been her only friend. But, when Emia spoke about the assassination attempt, it was like the floor had opened up under Katara and she was freefalling into oblivion. It terrified her. 

It’s easier to hate him. So she tries to do that again, even as she secretly prays for his recovery.

While Zuko rests, Katara doesn’t have much time to contemplate her complicated feelings for the prince. 

She has several appointments with the royal dressmaker, who measures and catalogs every part of Katara’s body. She’s never been particularly insecure about her looks, never even given them much thought, but she can’t help feeling a bit self-conscious at being so closely analyzed. She stands in only her underwrappings in front of a huge mirror, the head dressmaker and all her seamstresses fluttering around, and they act completely disinterested in her state of undress, probably used to it all the time, and hey, who knows, maybe the cultural issue of showing skin is different in the Fire Nation. But Katara is hyper-aware of her semi-nude state, having never been in public in less than a full winter outfit. 

_If this is bad, imagine the wedding night_ , a little voice in her head whispers. She stops breathing. In the mirror, her eyes get wide.

She also has appointments with a shoemaker, who replaces her fur-lined boots and moccasins with a dozen pairs of silk slippers. They’re in a variety of colors, not just red, which she appreciates. The dresses, when they arrive, are similarly in many colors and styles. Emia arranges them in her closet like a rainbow.

Since Iroh won’t let anyone leave the palace, Katara spends the rest of her free time meeting the staff and spending time with her father. She’s requested Emia as her personal lady’s maid, and she, along with two guards, trails after Katara and Hakoda as they wander the library. For whatever reason, whether to prevent another attack or simply save face, the rumors about Zuko’s poisoning are being kept very hush-hush. Even Hakoda doesn’t know the true reason behind why Zuko is sick.

Katara’s debated with herself about telling her father about the assassination attempt. She doesn’t like keeping things from him, but she knows that he would demand she return home with him immediately if he knew of the imminent threat to the royal family. Understandably, he would be worried about his only daughter. But Katara isn’t going to give up on her dreams of freedom just yet. She knows that if she goes home now, she’ll never get the courage to leave again. She’ll marry some nice boy from the Southern Water Tribe and be the village healer and have a good life, a perfectly respectable life, one that would completely bore her out of her skull for the rest of her days. 

She wants to make a difference, and what better way than being a princess, than one day becoming Fire Lady? According to Iroh, marrying Zuko instantly reserves her a place in the Fire Council, with real politicians making real change. People will hear what she has to say, listen to her ideas in a way nobody does back home. And, as a princess of the Fire Nation, Pakku can no longer stifle her waterbending. She’ll be able to practice bending, maybe even find some scrolls or books to teach her.

She remembers Sokka’s words: _“There’s a whole world out there. You deserve to see all of it. You deserve to be happy, Katara.”_

It’s not that she’s _not_ happy at home. Katara loves the South Pole, loves her tribe. But that’s only a slice of the world, and Sokka’s right. She deserves to see what else is out there. She deserves to find out who she is and what she’s capable of.

She doesn’t tell her father.

* * *

Katara had planned to wait until after the wedding, after her father and fellow tribesman go, to resume her bending. But one night, when she can’t sleep, she sneaks past the patrolling guards and makes her way to the smallest courtyard garden. Instead of a grand fountain like the one she’d been brought to that first day in the Fire Nation, this courtyard just has a pond filled with turtle ducks. They swim up to her as she approaches, quaking. She giggles, putting a finger to her lip to try and shush them. Katara sits down, her skirt billowing out on the grass, to pet the little creatures. She’s wearing one of her new dresses, one of the simpler ones, with glittering navy blue fabric that looks like the night sky. She doesn’t want to get grass stains on it, but petting the turtle ducks is definitely worth it.

She flicks her wrist and one of the baby turtle ducks surfs a small wave. It shakes droplets from its downy fur, seeming to beam up at her. The rest of the family starts quaking and splashing excitedly and, at first, Katara thinks they also want to play with her, to rid a wave across the pond. Then a shadow steps up beside her, blocking out the moonlight.

“They like you.”

Katara freezes as Zuko gracefully drops into a crouch beside her, reaching out to touch the fluffy head of one of the turtle ducks. 

All the words she’s rehearsed vanish like smoke through her fingers. She’d known, of course, that she would have to see him again soon. Somehow, she’s unprepared for the sight of Zuko, solid and real and awake, close enough to touch. She saw him, touched him, only a week ago to heal him, but this is different. She was preoccupied then, and nearly unable to see in only the flickering firelight, but now the full moon lights up the courtyard so brightly that it’s nearly day. 

He’s so much... _more_ than she remembers. Bigger. He was tall for a thirteen-year-old when she knew him, but he’s a man now, and taller still. Where he was scrawny and gawky then, he’s filled out into a broad chest and strong arms visible even under his silk nightclothes. Zuko’s hair is longer, hanging down his back and gleaming in the silvery light. The side of his face she can see, the side without the scar, is heart-stutteringly handsome, but she wishes she could see all of him. She never thought the burned portion took away from his face—after all, she had a crush on him when it was still healing, when it was oozing and frankly pretty gross. But, after she’s been clearly looking too long for him not to notice and return her gaze, Katara realizes he’s purposefully continuing to angle his damaged eye away from her. Hiding. 

She remembers all the other things he hid from her. She feels a flash of rage, grabbing onto it with both hands. 

“Why didn’t you want Iroh to tell me?”

Zuko fully looks at her now, for the first time in almost a decade. Golden eyes meet her blue ones. Katara’s heart lurches. She ignores it.

“What do you mean?”

“About the attempt on your life!” She stands up quickly, frightening the turtle ducks away. “I get keeping it from everyone else, but from _me_? I’m going to be your wife, Zuko!”

He gets up as well. He’s even taller standing. She’s not used to this, to looking up at him so much, to him being so _different_. Of course, she doesn’t want to marry a child of thirteen, but a part of her, with nothing else to go on, kept picturing the fading memories of the abandoned boy Zuko had been once upon a time. The boy that was her friend. She misses him. She misses Zuko, even though he’s right in front of her.

“I know,” he replies. He opens his mouth, shutting it again, as if wanting to speak but is not sure what to say.

This _is_ Zuko, she realizes. The boy she was friends with who lied to her for months and betrayed her in the end. And now he’s still lying, trying to keep things from her. She can’t trust him. She won’t.

“Don’t worry,” Katara snaps. “I’m not _scared_. Just because my dad and brother treat me like I’m fragile, breakable, doesn’t mean I am.”

“I know,” he says again. His voice is softer but his face is still wary.

“No, you don’t!” she yells. “You have _no_ idea who I am.”

With that, she storms inside, right past the bewildered guards in the guest wing to her room.

* * *

The next day, at her place setting at breakfast, is a bound scroll.

“Open it later,” Iroh instructs her, winking merrily. 

“So kind of the Fire Lord to give my daughter another gift,” Hakoda says from the seat next to Katara’s. “The new clothes are more than enough.”

“Oh, it’s not from me. It’s from my nephew.”

Back in her bedroom, while Emia is drawing her a bath, Katara opens the scroll. Illustrations of waterbending techniques fill the parchment. A separate note flutters to the ground.

_A peace offering. Maybe we can spar sometime. - Z_

* * *

“Thank you for the scroll,” Katara tells Zuko at dinner.

They’re sitting across from each other. It’s the first time she’s seen him all day. After the way she yelled at him, she can’t really blame him for trying to avoid her. Though, to be fair, maybe he was busy; she has no clue about the daily duties of a prince. Either way, she knows she was too harsh with him, that she was taking out frustrations about other areas of her life and funneling all of that at the easiest available target. She’s not quite able to apologize to him, but she does want to thank him for the scroll. It means more than he can ever know to be able to have some sort of guide to practic bending with.

He nods politely. “Of course.”

She sneaks a look at her father. He’s deep in conversation with Iroh.

“And,” she whispers, “I’d like to...do that thing you talked about in your note.”

Zuko’s eyes flick to Hakoda, as hers had done, then back to her. In the candlelight, his amber eyes seem to glow. “After the wedding?”

“No, tonight.”

He seems surprised, but then the corner of his mouth quirks up into a smile. “I’ll come to you.”

* * *

Katara had requested of Emia to find a tunic and pants for her. As nice as her dresses are, they’re not very convenient to move around in, and Katara’s Water Tribe clothes are just too heavy to wear, even at night. After dinner, before retiring to the servants' wing, Emia hands Katara an outfit of black trousers and a plain red top. Both of which are too big for her, the tunic comes down to mid-thigh, but she’s still thankful for them. 

She leaves the door cracked so Zuko knows which room is hers. She climbs onto her bed, trying and mostly failing to meditate as she waits. She’s too jittery. A million thoughts whirl around her head.

Is it a good idea to practice bending with her father right across the hall? Hakoda was persuaded by Pakku to not let girls learn waterbending, but would he outright restrict her from practicing if he came across her doing so? Would he now, when she’s about to be a citizen of the Fire Nation in two and a half weeks? 

Is it a good idea to practice bending with a firebender around? She doesn’t fully trust Zuko, but she doubts he would actually attack her. Still, he’s been bending a lot longer than she has, been formally trained. Is she going to embarrass herself? Is that his intention, to put her in her place? No, she doesn’t think him to be that cruel, even if she did yell at him yesterday. But what _is_ his reason for giving her the scroll and sparring with her? What could he possibly gain from that?

 _A peace offering_ , he wrote.

Katara sighs. Peace. A weighty word that’s been thrown around a lot lately. 

It’s midnight when her door creaks open and then shuts with a gentle click. Katara’s half-asleep and jolts when a black-clad figure leans over her in a blue theater mask. 

There’s a cup of water on her bedside table. She sends it toward the masked man in the form of an icicle. He catches it. Steam rises from his closed fist and the icicle turns to water, falling to the floorboards. 

Zukos takes off his mask. “You’ve got quick reflexes.”

She blinks. She’d almost just impaled her future husband. “You too.”

All of a sudden, he’s staring straight at her chest and Katara bristles. His eyes snap to hers.

“Sorry, I wasn’t—” Zuko clears his throat. There’s only a single candle lighting the room, but she can tell he’s blushing. “It’s just—you’re wearing my clothes.”

“Oh, I...didn’t know. Emia, my maid, got them for me when I said I needed a sturdier outfit. She probably figured that since we’re engaged...yeah. Um. Do you want them back?”

“No, no.” He swallows audibly, gaze raking over her before skittering toward the open window. “Keep them.”

Nodding, Katara gets to her feet. The clothes she has on—Zuko’s clothes—don’t smell like him. They smell clean, like fresh laundry. She remembers being young, holding Zuko after a nightmare, his scent of smoke and spices. She hasn’t been close enough to him yet to see if he smells the same. She has to curb the urge to do so now.

“Thank you for this,” Katara murmurs. “For being nice to me.”

He shrugs, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I figure we should at least get along. Since, you know, we’re supposed to be a symbol of unity, or whatever.”

She grins. “‘Or whatever?’ Is that a political term I don’t know about, Sparky?”

Zuko rolls his eyes, backing up into the shadowy room. “Trying to distract me, Raindrop? I thought we were supposed to be sparring here. Send some more ice my way.”

“I, uh, haven’t done that before. The thing with the icicle, I mean.”

“Then show me what you’ve been working on.”

So she does. Katara memorized most of the waterbending movements from the scroll today, but looking at them on paper and actually effectively performing them are two very different things. Still, all things considered, she’s proud of how well she’s doing. Even though she suspects Zuko’s going easy on her, she’s holding her own. And, when she fails to do a move or falters in some way, he doesn’t mock her. Instead, he gives her pointers. He tells her that in the course of his own training with Iroh, he’s studied bending scrolls from other elements, including the one he gave Katara. She doesn’t think his tips will work until she puts them into action and finds herself able to create ice for the first time. On purpose, that is.

“Wider stance,” Zuko is saying. 

They’ve been sparring for two hours, both of them sweating and breathing heavily. But Katara’s never felt so good in her life. She feels like she’s finally stretching her legs after a long time of sitting. She feels like she’s finding parts of herself that were in hibernation, out of reach until tonight. It’s exhilarating. This is _fun_. When was the last time she had this much fun?

Zuko laughs. Somehow he’s snuck up behind her, and he’s so near that his chest vibrates against her back. “You’re grinning like a lunatic.”

He puts his hands lightly on her waist, just above her hips. “Wider stance,” he tells her again. He nudges her legs apart with his knee. “Like that.”

And then his heat is gone from her back, the fight is back on, but she managed to smell him. Smoke and spices, just like always.


	5. Throw Stones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for some angst...

Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula, arrives a week before the wedding. Azula’s like a beautiful sculpture come to life; midnight-dark hair, ruby-red lips, skin the color of moonlight. She bears a striking resemblance to Zuko at first glance, but, upon further inspection, Katara notes several important differences. Instead of warmth, Azula’s golden eyes are cold, hard, like yellow quartz. 

There’s something sharp, wicked, about her smile. Her long nails are like talons, ready to strike.

With Azula are her friends, Ty Lee and Mai. The three of them reside together in one of the royal family’s many homes in the country, a place where, according to Emia, Azula has been on house arrest after her mental breakdown following Ozai’s death. Iroh seems confident that Azula is getting better, coming around, but Katara isn’t so sure. She’s glad that Zuko’s sister and her friends will only be here for the wedding and then go back to the country house. She wouldn’t sleep a wink at night if Azula lived under the palace’s roof.

Now that the time is so fast approaching, Katara is swamped with wedding preparations. The whole thing has been planned already, something she previously agreed to before coming to the Fire Nation, but there are still fittings to do, rehearsal dinners to go to, and vows to think about. 

During the day, Zuko is distant, tense, and treats her politely but like a stranger. At night, the rigid line of his shoulders relaxes as they spar, sometimes in the courtyard with the turtle ducks but mostly in her bedroom. They speak very little; both seem to understand the unspoken agreement to not rock the boat. 

Three nights before the wedding, Katara almost breaks the agreement. She has a lot she needs to say to him, old wounds to discuss, but can’t find the right time or the right words. She wants to ask him about their time together in the South Pole. She wants to ask him about his father, about his sister, about how he got the scar on his face. She wants to ask him about the assassination attempt. 

_Why did you lie to me all those years ago? Why did you leave? Why are you still trying to keep things from me? Are you going to leave me again?_

That last one echoes in her head.

_Are you going to leave me again?_

_Are you going to leave me again?_

_Are you going to leave me again?_

That’s it, isn’t it? The fear that, like her mother, people will always end up leaving her. To realize the root of her turmoil with trust is harrowing.

To make matters worse, Emia enlightens her to Zuko and Mai’s history together. _Dating_ history. Katara doesn’t like Zuko. She definitely doesn’t—all that crush stuff was years and years back, practically a lifetime ago. Totally. Absolutely. No crush. Nope.

Still, the thought of Zuko with another girl irritates her. Especially one as stunning and sophisticated as Mai.

It occurs to Katara, when she sees Zuko and Mai taking a stroll together after dinner, why they never spar in his bedroom. She doesn’t expect him to be innocent in regards to sex, but the idea of him having Mai or other girls in his room while engaged to _her_ makes her stomach heave. He’s nineteen, it makes sense for him to have dated people, but she’s heard about how, both in the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, royal men sometimes take several mistresses along with a wife, and _that_ is completely unacceptable to Katara. She will have a loyal husband or nothing, she decides. And that’s final.

* * *

On the second to last night before the wedding, Katara accidentally cuts his bicep with her water whips. 

Zuko puts a hand up to stop the bleeding. For some reason, he’s smiling at her, almost proud. “You’re learning fast. You’ll need a real waterbending teacher soon, one to help you become a Master.”

The praise fills her with warm embers, but it’s doused by the anxiety she feels about the upcoming event and her uncertainty in regards to her rocky friendship with Zuko. She remembers Azula’s words from dinner, nodding at Mai and Zuko as they conversed: _“Don’t they look so cute?”_

“Are you sleeping with Mai?” Katara finds herself saying out loud. 

Once it’s past her lips, she instantly regrets it. But it’s too late, it’s out there. She’s one of _those_ girls, needy and insecure, desperate for reassurance. 

_Reassurance of what?_ she asks herself. _He doesn’t owe me anything_ , Katara suddenly realizes. _It’s not like we’re in love. This is an arranged marriage. He should be able to have his pleasures with someone he actually likes._

In the candlelight, his brow furrows. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Everybody thinks it,” she says, trying to save herself in the face of total humiliation. “Not just me.”

His frown deepens. “Well, they’re wrong. Obviously.”

She crosses her arms. “‘Obviously?’ There’s nothing _obvious_ about it, Zuko! You talk to her all the time, people are gonna put the dots together.”

“She’s just an old friend, Katara.”

“No, _I’m_ an old friend. And the day I got here you almost died and you weren’t going to tell me, were you? You weren’t even going to tell me! You were going to hide it from me like you always do, like you did back then!”

Zuko’s eyes flash. All at once, he’s as angry as she is. “Oh, _now_ you want to talk about ‘back then,’ do you? It’s only taken six fucking years.”

She jolts, then fists her hands at her sides. Her nails bite into the soft skin of her palms. “What does that mean?”

“You know what it means,” he growls. “You _know_.”

“All I know is that I thought you were my friend and then I found out your dad is responsible for the _murder_ of my mom, something which you conveniently left out for months! I told you about her, cried to you about her death! How could you—!”

“I’m sorry about that, you know how sorry I am about that, Katara. But I was young and I didn’t know what—”

“ _How_?! How do I know you’re sorry, Zuko?”

They’re nose to nose now, breathing heavily. Even in the dimness, she can see every eyelash on his good eye; that’s how close she is to him. It’s making her dizzy.

He looks away from her, jaw clenched. “You didn’t even read them, did you? My letters. I thought, even though you didn’t respond, that you’d read them. You didn’t even care enough to…” he trails off, voice cracking. 

A surge of emotion swells in her chest. She wants to apologize, wants to try and explain—it had never occurred to her that, while she felt abandoned by him, Zuko might feel equally abandoned by her. 

Katara feels like she’s drowning. She reaches for his arm, the one bleeding. He jerks away.

She licks her dry lips. “Let me just heal you,” she pleads softly, but he only steps farther from her, only a few feet but it feels like an uncrossable chasm.

“I didn’t tell you about the attempt on my life because I was ashamed of being so weak. I was ashamed six years ago at the South Pole too, of my face and my family. I didn’t want you to hate me, but I see now that you do anyway. I’m sorry for bringing you here. It was a mistake.” 

_“You’re a mistake,”_ Katara hears. He thinks of her as a mistake, which makes her so livid she sees red.

His words to her were robotic, devoid of any feeling. She wants Zuko angry again, spitting and furious, anything to get rid of this numbness on his face.

“Maybe it was,” she snaps. “Maybe you should have chosen some other Water girl to marry.”

Zuko sneers down at her. “Princess Yue was already taken.”

She sucks in a ragged breath. That hurt. A lot. Her eyes sting but she refuses to cry in front of him. 

“I hate you,” she whispers around the lump in her throat. 

He flinches as if she'd struck him. He looked so intimidating only moments ago. Now he appears younger than his years, and miserable; just like that boy she knew, the one she held in the dark.

“I know,” Zuko mumbles gruffly. 

He bows formally, staring at the floor. Without another word, he slips out her bedroom door.

For the first time in a long time, Katara cries herself to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From now on, updates will be weekly. Chapter Six will be posted next Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading!


	6. Trip to the City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a brief discussion about Zuko's PTSD from living with an abusive father. Nothing graphic comes up, but if that makes you uncomfortable in any way, please be cautious. Also, on a completely different topic, I just want to give you all so many virtual hugs for the support you guys have shown this story. I'm a new AtLA fan and I've never written for Zutara before, so all your positive feedback means a lot!

The day before the wedding, she has her final dress fitting with the seamstresses, but, after the fight with Zuko last night, Katara’s not even sure if there’s even going to  _ be _ a wedding, so she decides to sleep in. Every time Emia tries to pry her out of bed, she waves the maid off, and so, eventually, it’s Sokka that wakes her up around noon.

Elated to see her brother, she throws her arms around his neck. “You’re here! I thought you weren’t going to arrive until tomorrow morning!” 

Her brother hugs her back just as tightly. “We made good time.” Sokka pulls away, grinning fondly at her. “I missed you, Katara. Nobody mends my clothes as well as you!”

She rolls her eyes, shoving him playfully as she gets out of bed. Katara realizes that they’re not alone in the room; Yue is standing behind Sokka, hands collapsed elegantly together against the folds of her skirt, looking as pristine as always. 

In her head, Katara hears Zuko’s words from the previous night:  _ “Princess Yue was already taken.” _

She pastes what she hopes resembles a smile on her face and greets her sister-in-law. If she thinks too much about the fight between her and Zuko, Katara feels like she might cry again, so she tries to bury it deep. 

“Chief Hakoda and your grandmother are having lunch with the Fire Lord, but Sokka and I came to fetch you to see if you have time to come into the city with us. We — or me, I suppose — would like to go shopping.”

“And I,” Sokka declares, “am coming along on the condition we get food first.”

“And to carry the bags,” Yue tells him, smiling pleasantly as her husband huffs.

“Right. That too.”

It’s been a month since Zuko was poisoned. He was in the city to meet his friend Lee, and they, according to what Iroh told Katara, were at a teashop, which is where the poison must have been slipped into his drink. Lee has been cleared, as have the employees of the shop, and despite a thorough investigation, the palace guards haven’t found the person or persons responsible. Still, with chaperones, Iroh is now allowing the guests in the palace to come and go into the city as they please. Hakoda and the other tribesmen have been several times, but, especially in the last week, Katara has had her hands full.

She’s tired from her restless night and nervous about the wedding, about whether there even will be one, and physically feels sick at the thought of coming face to face with Zuko any time soon. All she wants to do is crawl back into bed and sleep forever, but, she figures, a shopping trip would take her out of the palace where there’s no chance of running into her betrothed. And, hey, it might even be fun. At the very least, it’ll take her mind off things.

“Okay, I’m in. Just let me get dressed and I’ll meet you guys in the hall.”

* * *

The Fire Nation Capital is beautiful, though Zuko isn’t the only one with scars, it seems. Even after more than half a decade, the skeletons of scorched buildings litter the poor neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city, remnants and reminders of the Hundred Year War, of that final battle where Fire Lord Ozai finally fell from power. The palace guards try and steer their party away from the heart of the damage and to the rebuilt shopping district, but Katara gets glimpses on the ride, and the nation’s struggling economy is clear even among the glimmering boutiques; homeless people roam and beg and steal right in front of her eyes. 

Though it breaks her heart, it hardens her resolve. She was not aware of how the Fire Nation flounders; the Souther Water Tribe, now that trade has been reinstated, has thrived since the war ended. Katara came here for herself, for reasons that are still important to her, but she sees now that the Fire Nation has wounds, wounds that she can help fix. This is where she is needed, she can feel it. And she never turns away from people who need her. 

As she buys out a street vendor with her shopping budget to feed a starving veteran and his dozen small children, Katara decides that she will marry Zuko tomorrow, if he’ll still have her, no matter the instability of their personal relationship. 

She runs to catch up with Sokka and Yue. 

“Where’d you slip off to?” he demands. 

The three guards look similarly irritated. She does feel bad for vanishing into the crowd and worrying them, but she just shrugs, a faint smile turning up her mouth.

“My job.”

Sokka rolls his eyes. “You’re so weird.”

“At least I’m not a pack mule.” Katara giggles, gesturing to the bags hanging from his arms. 

She doesn’t even know how Yue managed to purchase so many things in such a short amount of time. It’s truly impressive, actually. Right now, Yue is inside a store that seems to sell jewelry while Sokka, weighed down by his wife's new clothes, sits on the stone steps.

He sighs, trying to look annoyed, but the look in his eye gives him away. When Yue comes out onto the street once more, Sokka brightens. Katara looks away as he kisses his wife on the cheek. She wishes someone might someday love her that much. 

“Have you found anything you like, Katara?”

She shrugs. She spent all the money she brought buying food for that family, but, if needed, she’s sure Sokka and Yue would give her some coins. Maybe even the guards would, or, who knows, maybe the royal family doesn’t have to pay upfront. 

“Not really.”

“There are some beautiful pieces inside,” Yue nods toward the shop she just came out of, showing Katara the necklace she bought. From the silver chain, a waning moon made of blue glass catches the sunlight. “She claims to be the finest glassblower in the city and it’s a title she most certainly deserves.” 

“Glass, huh. Maybe I will check it out.”

Sokka and Yue, chatting about something, move on down the street and Katara promises them she’ll be along in a minute. Two of the palace guards follow her inside the jewelry shop as one trails after her brother and the light-haired princess of the North. As they leave, she hears the guard call them “Prince Sokka and Princess Yue,” and it makes her pause. She’s never considered the fact that, technically, Sokka is a prince now, just as Katara soon will be a princess. What a wild twist of events. If only their mother could see them, Katara thinks she would be proud.

As she browses the display cases in the shop, Katara wonders about her brother’s new royal status. He and Yue have been married for less than six months. After returning from the trip to help rebuild her city, they’ve lived for months with the tribe in the South Pole. To Katara’s knowledge, they haven’t discussed any plans beyond the present, but, eventually, they will have to go to the Northern Water Tribe to rule when Yue’s father passes. She wonders if Sokka has fully thought about this in his whirlwind romance. Much more than Katara, his identity has always been tied up in being a warrior of the South. How would he fare having to spend most of his time dealing with politics in the other Water Tribe? Though both the North and South Tribes are more similar to each other than to the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom, they do have differing customs and cultures. Will Sokka feel lonely there?

For the first time, Katara wonders if Yue is currently lonely, Yue who is living in the South with strangers, away from everything she’s ever known. But she has Sokka. And Sokka, if they indeed go up to the North Pole in the future, will have Yue. If they’re destined to last, their love will pull them through. They don’t have to face any obstacle alone.

In contrast, Katara, in the Fire Nation, has no one. Though she has missed the snow and the cold, she’s had her father and his men living with her for a month, and now Sokka’s here (and, somewhere, Gran-Gran), but, after the wedding tomorrow evening, everyone will go back home and leave her all on her own. She’s alone.

It occurs to her, though, that that isn’t quite true. Zuko seems pretty lonely himself. Aside from Lee, who rarely has time to travel from the Earth Kingdom, Zuko seems to have no friends. Before Mai came, he would sit at meals and stare off at nothing, shoulders sloped, back slightly hunched, like he was trying to collapse in on himself and disappear. He’s good at that, disappearing. Aside from meals and sparring, the latter of which being the only time she sees him somewhat at ease, Zuko is nowhere to be found. Katara has assumed that this has to do with her presence and that of her tribesmen, but maybe she’s wrong? Maybe it’s not personal to her. Maybe something else plagues Zuko. 

Are the memories of his monstrous father enough to still, six years later, make him uncomfortable in his own home? Stupidly, she’s never considered it from that angle. 

From the time she met Zuko, seeing his temper and the sparks that flew out of his fingertips when angered, she categorized the burn on his face as a mistake he’d made himself, maybe part of the reason he’d been exiled and left in the South to die. But what if she’s wrong? What if something did that to him on purpose?

Katara thinks about how, one time, he’d jumped when Iroh came up behind him to clap a hand on his shoulder. She remembers thinking that Zuko was rude, such a drama queen, to glare at his uncle for the action. She hadn’t understood why Iroh hastily apologized for sneaking up on him. She only rolled her eyes and continued picking at her too-spicy fish while Zuko clenched his fists and took deep breathes. 

Shame. That was the reason Zuko gave for lying to her, back then and now. Ashamed of his weakness, as he put it, at getting poisoned. As if it was his fault. Why would he think like that...unless he was taught to think like that, to blame himself? Last night, he also said he was ashamed of his family, and that was his reason for not telling her who he was six years ago. He said he was ashamed of his face. His scar. Katara remembers him angling his damaged side away from her that first night near the turtle duck pond. At the time, it seemed ridiculous — as if she would care or not remember what his eye looked like — and it insulted her. But it wasn’t ridiculous to Zuko. Neither was the logic about not wanting to tell her about the assassination attempt. Even though it sounded like just a silly excuse to her at the time, it’s not. He truly thought it was his fault. And none of it, the lying and hiding and avoiding, has anything to do with her. 

It hits her all at once. He is fighting inner demons, not Katara. 

Without speaking to him and clearing the air, she can’t be totally certain. And yet she is. The only times Zuko has looked happy in the last month have been sparring with her. She recalls the proud smile he’d given her when she beat him last night. It was a  _ real _ smile, one of few she’s seen from him. She’d been so caught up in her own jealous thoughts of him and Mai to appreciate it.

Maybe if they work on communicating, she and Zuko can actually be friends again, be a team in their marriage. Maybe even more than friends. Is it wrong of her to hope?

“Good choice!” someone’s voice cuts through Katara’s intense pondering.

It’s the shopkeeper, an elderly woman with spiky white hair. Without actually seeing, Katara has been gazing at glass beads. It reminds her of why she came in the shop to begin with.

“Has anyone purchased purple hair beads from you?” she asks the woman. “About a month ago?”

The ones Zuko gave her are lovely, though she hasn’t worn them since that first day in the Fire Nation. Maybe she can get white ones to wear tomorrow? 

“A month ago, you say?” The shopkeeper considers Katara, eyes flicking to the guards lurking in the back of the shop, then scanning Katara’s outfit. “You are the new princess, Katara of the South Pole! First the prince and now a princess in my store, my word, what an honor…”

Katara laughs a little. “Technically, two princesses. That last girl that was in here, very blonde? The princess of the Northern Water Tribe.”

The old shopkeeper looks faint. “ _ Two _ —? ”

“That’s right. Didn’t you think anything of all the blue she was wearing?”

After the words are out of Katara’s mouth, she pauses, realizing. For some reason, there’s a  _ lot _ of blue around, banners in the street and people wearing the color and displays in all the shop windows. How odd. Even the shopkeeper, though wearing normal red and black Fire Nation attire, sports a sapphire necklace.

“I guess you didn’t notice with all the blue around. Why  _ is _ there so much blue?”

The shopkeeper smiles, having recovered from her earlier shock. “For you, of course! We never got to greet you when you first arrived, but now, with the wedding approaching, we celebrate the new princess and her marriage to the crowned prince! Tomorrow there will be a grand parade and parties in the streets ― ”

Katara is stunned. “A parade? Really?”

The old woman nods eagerly. “We are so happy to have you here, Lady Katara. Look at all of this.” She gestures out the window to the street decorations. “Red and blue together, see? A new beginning for us all. Hope. You bring us hope, child.”

Katara doesn’t know what to say. She feels overwhelmed. She’d thought it would take years and years of hard work to try and win over the people of the nation, to have them accept an outsider. But it seems that most of them, by the amount of blue worn and hung around the city, are already glad of her presence. 

While she’s processing, the shopkeeper is going on about a romantic affair from her youth.“ ― so in love, but he was an earthbender, and so it was forbidden, of course. I never thought I’d live to see the end of the war, to see the day where a firebender could freely marry a girl from a Water Tribe. When Prince Zuko came to my shop, I was ― ”

Katara perks up. “So Zuko  _ did _ come here to buy my hair beads?”

The shopkeeper shakes her head, her spiky white hair getting even wilder with the motion. “No, child. He came here to learn the art of glassblowing. I am ― ”

She remembers Yue’s words. “The finest glassblower in the city?”

The woman bows, pleased. “Precisely! I taught him myself, in the studio above this very shop. He came and practiced for several weeks before creating those purple beads for you. He’s quite relentless. Mind you, they’re not as, uh,  _ uniform _ as my work, but very good for a boy wanting to impress a girl, don't you think so?” 

* * *

On the way back to the palace, Katara asks Yue, “Did Zuko ever write to you? Asking for marriage?” Sokka is up chatting with the guards, but she keeps her voice low just in case.

Yue glances over at her in surprise. “Prince Zuko? No, never. Why would he?”

She shrugs awkwardly. “I don’t know. I guess I was just thinking...if the Fire Nation wanted a foreign bride, why wouldn’t they ask an actual princess? Why me?”

Yue’s light blue gaze softens. “You know, I read the letter Iroh sent your grandmother.”

“You did?”

“Mm-hm. Fire Lord Iroh said that Prince Zuko received numerous offers from Earth Kingdom royalty and noblewomen. But Zuko only wanted you. I thought you knew that.”

Katara doesn’t know how to reply. She remembers the stack of untouched letters that Zuko sent to her over the years. For the first time, she has the urge to read them, so strong that it breaks through her apprehension and uncertainty. 

The royal palace comes into view. Heart beating like a drum, Katara walks faster.


	7. A Revelation at Midmorning Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit more of Zuko and Azula’s upbringing is talked about in this chapter, so consider this a warning for upcoming implications of child abuse.

“What did you do?” Mai demands.

Zuko blinks, glancing up from his teacup. He looks from Mai to Ty Lee, both of whom have just arrived and are seating themselves across from him and Azula. The two siblings, at the request of their uncle, were having tea together before the interruption; an attempt for them to bond, it seems. Though the conversation was stilted and awkward, and Azula snapped at a servant when the teapot was brought to the table lukewarm instead of hot, Zuko was surprised that his sister even showed up, that she seemed to be trying (in her own way). 

_ “I sometimes fear it’s too late for her,” _ Zuko remembers Uncle Iroh telling him once, after a report that Azula was setting fires in the country house. That was before Mai and Ty Lee volunteered to go live with her.  _ “Ozai’s claws are in her too deep.” _

Azula is Azula; she’s fierce and mean and hotheaded, always has been, but when they were younger, she was never cruel. Not until her bending abilities manifested and Ozai took a special interest in her. That was when everything changed, at least in Zuko’s memory. Until then, he and Azula were practically attached at the hip, building sandcastles on Ember Island and chasing each other in the palace gardens and playing hide-and-seek in the library, shrieking and laughing to the bemusement of the servants and the annoyance of the guards who had to keep an eye on them. She cheated at games and lied about silly things, like where she’d put their toys, but she’d never shown the urge to hurt anything, never had that look in her eye that said she would strike you down with lightning if you so much as looked at her wrong. But once Azula’s status as a firebending prodigy became apparent, she and Zuko were separated — he went with Mother, Azula went with Father. Zuko doesn’t know what exactly Ozai did to Azula, but the broken bones and the bruises and minor burns that constantly covered her arms and legs paint a bitter picture in his mind now. 

_ “I’m becoming strong,” _ she told Zuko, proudly, after a training session with Father. She was so small. He remembers the blood on her teeth, red clashing against white.

At the time, he wished Father would show  _ him _ how to be strong, too. Now it only makes Zuko feel ill. 

Zuko glances at his little sister. Her eyes are hard, guarded. To an outside perspective, she appears to be every bit the same person she was when she fought alongside Ozai against Iroh and the Avatar years ago. But Zuko knows her, despite how much she hides herself. He saw her face from the crowd of onlookers, the look of glee sparkling in her yellow eyes when Father burnt him during the Agni Kai. He saw her face during her early days of captivity in the country house, right after her mental breakdown after Ozai’s death, the savage snarl of her mouth and the wild, crazed look in her unfocused eyes. There is nothing of that in her face now.

_ I missed you so much _ , Zuko thinks, but doesn’t know how to say.  _ I’m not going to give up on you. _ Even as uncomfortable and stiff as some of their interactions have been since she arrived at the palace for his wedding, he’s immensely glad she’s here. That both of them are healing, albeit slowly, in their own way. 

Something shifts in her gaze. The tightness around her mouth lessens slightly. She looks, Zuko is surprised to see, a little bit like their mother. 

“Zuzu?” The nickname is old, but there’s no malice in it now. “What have you done this time?”

He shakes himself out of his thoughts, realizing the whole table is looking at him. He remembers Mai’s words from a moment ago — _ “What did you do?”  _

“Um, nothing?”

Mai stares at him, raising a dark brow into her hairline. “Wanna try again?”

“We heard Katara crying,” Ty Lee helpfully supplies. There are only two place settings, so she takes a delicate sip from Azula’s teacup. “Early this morning.”

Azula smirks. “Interesting. And what were  _ you _ two doing out in the halls early this morning?” 

Mai’s face gives nothing away, as usual, and, also as usual, Ty Lee’s gives everything away. Her cheeks grow pink and she fiddles with her long braid, trying and utterly failing to appear nonchalant. 

“Um, midnight snack?”

This is not the first time he’s gotten the impression that Mai and Ty Lee are dating now, and he doesn’t care to make them squirm like Azula does. His breakup with Mai was nearly two years ago, and they’d parted ways on good terms, having both come to the realization that they just weren’t right for each other. Since then, Mai and Ty Lee have lived with Azula in the house in the country, and, during Zuko’s monthly visits, he’s picked up on hints that the two girls are together. 

His main concern is what Ty Lee said about his future wife.

“Was she okay? Katara, I mean,” Zuko presses, leaning forward. 

“She sounded pretty upset,” Ty Lee replies quickly, thankful for the change of topic. She frowns, appearing genuinely concerned. “Did something happen?”

Zuko sighs wearily, closing his eyes. The fight he had with Katara last night, the thing he’s been trying to push out of his head all morning, plays across his eyelids in vivid color. Agni, he’s such an idiot.

“We got into an argument. She thought I was being unfaithful to our arrangement. I tried to tell her — but then everything got all twisted around and confusing and — ” Zuko winces, remembering the comment he’d made about Princess Yue. 

It was stupid and untrue, the thing he’d said. He’s never even considered asking for Yue’s hand in marriage. The implication that Katara was second-best, his second choice...Spirits, why had he said something so unkind? He’d been hurt, felt cornered, and had lashed out. And it had hit the mark. He recalls Katara’s watery blue eyes, the betrayal warping her features. She looked at him that way before, once upon a time, among snow and ice. 

_ “I hate you.” _

Zuko remembers chasing her out of the village in the South Pole, running and running uselessly until she’d winked out of sight. The sun always chases the moon, always chases, never catches her.

_ “I hate you.” _

He groans. “I’m a moron.”

“Obviously,” Azula drawls. But she pokes his arm, making him open his eyes. “I’m sure if you apologize, she’ll understand.”

“I thought apologies showed weakness,” he can’t stop himself from muttering. It was something Azula said to him years back, something no doubt directly from the mouth of their father. 

His sister holds her head high, but doesn’t quite look at him. “Whoever said that was wrong.”

“I think apologizing is a good idea!” Ty Lee smiles brightly at him. “Communication is the key to a healthy relationship, you know.”

“They don’t have a  _ relationship _ , Ty Lee,” Azula points out. “It’s an arranged marriage.”

All three girls look at him for confirmation or denial. Zuko feels his face grow warm in the morning light coming in through the open window in his sister’s suite. The urge to fling himself out said open window is growing stronger by the minute. This is the  _ last _ topic in the entire world he wants to discuss with his ex-girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend, and his little sister. 

“Oh,” Azula simply says. 

“Told you,” Mai mumbles to Ty Lee, who giggles into her hand.

“It’s complicated,” Zuko chokes out, clutching onto his empty cup for something to do with his hands. “I don’t think...I don’t think she feels the same way.”

“Have you asked her?”

“Well. Um, no, actually. But it seemed like — ”

“It  _ seems  _ like you should take Ty Lee’s advice,” Mai cuts him off, rolling her eyes. “Communication, remember? Even if the marriage stays platonic, you need to be able to talk to each other.”

Zuko feels his temper flare. “I tried to communicate for years! She never answered any of my letters! Not even  _ one _ .”

“Maybe she wasn’t ready then,” Ty Lee tells him gently. “Maybe she still isn’t, will never be. But you have to try. If you do like her, that is.”

“I do,” Zuko says without thinking. 

It’s true. He’s liked Katara for so long, since he opened his eyes in that igloo in the South Pole. Even with how disastrously they’d parted ways six years ago, he’s never been able to get her out of his head. Over time, after years of her not writing back, of no contact, her presence in his mind was smaller as he dated Mai and went about his life. But she was still always there, always in his dreams. Now, with having seen her again, touched her, knowing she’s nearby and is about to become his wife, his crush has come roaring back to life. It’s almost painful, the way he aches for her. 

But Zuko is bad at this, at knowing how to deal with his feelings. He’s afraid he’s going to mess it all up, fail, the way he always does. 

Ozai’s voice echoes in his head — _ “You’ve failed me for the last time.” _

But his father is dead, and his voice is fainter than it used to be. 

Zuko takes a deep breath. “All right,” he tells the girls. “I’ll try.”

* * *

When Zuko goes to talk to Katara, her bedroom is empty. He can’t find her anywhere, not in any of the courtyard gardens, not the library, not with her father. He would have started to panic if her lady’s maid hadn’t then informed him that Katara, her brother, and Princess Yue went into the city on a shopping trip. 

Zuko thanks her, and is about to retreat back to his own room when Uncle Iroh approaches. Behind him, in robes of brilliant orange, is Avatar Aang. 

* * *

Katara leaves Sokka and Yue in the entrance of the palace. They’re taking a minute to sort out how they’re going to carry all her packages and shopping bags to their room, and Katara can’t any longer wait for them to figure it out. Hiking up her skirts, she sprints to the guest wing.

She’s shocked to find her bedroom door open and a circus of seamstresses inside. 

“There you are! We’ve been waiting for  _ hours _ for you to get back!” Emia cries, pulling her into the chaos. 

“Where is all my stuff gone?” Katara demands, glancing in confusion from the empty closet to the bare section of floor where her trunk had been. 

Zuko’s letters. She has to read the letters. Where are they?

“In your new room!” Emia pleasantly replies, helping Katara undress. “Don’t worry, I put everything away there just as you like it.”

“New room? The one attached to Zuko’s bedroom?”

“That’s right.”

Emia steps back and the head dressmaker motions for Katara to step onto a stool in front of the large three-paneled mirror. Before she can say anything else, a dress is being pulled down over her head. Her wedding dress, she realizes with a jolt.

Katara’s head spins. She has trouble swallowing. “Can I go there now? To the room with my stuff? Or after the dress fitting?”

“Nope. It’s tradition,” Emia says, apologetically. “You stay the night in this room with only your nightclothes. You’re supposed to take the time to think about the upcoming union and your duties to your new husband and country, though I’m pretty sure no one actually does that.” The lady’s maid leans in so the gaggle of seamstresses can’t hear. “If I were you, I’d sneak in a scroll from the library to keep me occupied. Then, tomorrow, you’ll be reunited with your things as you begin your new life as a princess of the Fire Nation!”

The dressmaker shoos Emia back and Katara’s reflection is, once more, alone in the mirror. The panels are adjusted so that she can see herself from every angle.

“You look so beautiful!” Emia exclaims, and several of the other seamstresses murmur in agreement.

Katara’s sweaty from walking in the city, her hair is tangled, and she feels decidedly unbeautiful at the moment. She fingers the fabric of the wedding dress.

“It’s so...dark.”

“Black is the color of weddings in the Fire Nation.”

“Where I’m from, it’s white,” Katara tells the dressmaker. 

She doesn’t mean for it to come out so blunt. Truthfully, she doesn’t care about this dress at all right now. She wants to read those letters. She wants to find Zuko, talk to him before it’s too late, before he calls the whole thing off and sends her back to the South Pole. He’s what’s important.

But the dressmaker, visible now in the mirror in her tight bun and a tape measure in her hands, looks dismayed. “We did not realize, Lady Katara. My humblest apologies. The error will be corrected in time for tomorrow, of course.”

Emia helps Katara take the dress off and redress in her normal attire as the seamstresses flit about and pack their things for the head dressmaker.

“So I really can’t get to my trunk before — ?”

Emia shakes her head regretfully. “No, I’m sorry.”

She bites back a frustrated groan. “It’s okay. Do you, uh, know where Zuko is, then?”

“I believe that Prince Zuko is still with the Fire Lord and the Avatar.”

Katara blinks. “The Avatar?”


	8. The Night Before The Wedding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally some smut! Thanks for being so patient while the plot was building :)

Avatar Aang is nearly two decades past one hundred, but there’s something almost youthful about him, in his kind smile and twinkling grey eyes. Katara likes him immediately. She’s honored that he, his wife, and a few of his kin have made the long journey from the Southern Air Temple for her wedding. Meng, the Avatar’s wife, is from an Earth Kingdom village, and, before meeting Aang, was a fortune teller’s assistant. During dinner, she and Ty Lee chatter away about auras and palm reading and other things Katara doesn’t understand. 

One of Aang’s grandchildren is a blind girl named Toph, who happens to be an earthbender. All the rest of Aang’s relations, present or otherwise, seem to be either airbenders like him or nonbenders. Having been the only waterbender in her tribe, Katara knows that struggle, but the younger girl seem utterly unphased when the topic comes up. 

“No matter how much the wind blows, the mountain never bows to it,” Avatar Aang cryptically says, smiling at his granddaughter.

Toph scoffs. “That’s his way of saying I could kick all of your asses, and that includes you firebenders and waterbenders.”

Toph’s father shushes her but Aang only laughs. When the merriment dies down, he turns to Katara. He’s at the head of this end of the table, with only Zuko between them.

“Prince Zuko was telling us earlier than you’re a waterbender, Katara of the South. And a good one at that, though formally untrained.”

Having gone directly from her dress fitting to dinner with everyone, she hasn’t gotten the chance to reconcile with her betrothed. She longs for a chance for them to be alone and talk, but Zuko’s said a few things to her at dinner, shy inquiries about her day in the city, containing none of the anger from last night. She’s even more relieved than she’d thought she’d be at the fact that he’s not still mad at her.

It’s a long table, but there’s a lull in conversation, and Katara knows Pakku and Gran-Gran and her father can probably hear. Next to Katara on the right is Sokka and Yue, and then the rest of her family and tribesman. She thinks about Pakku forbidding her from waterbending, imposing his Northern views on the village, turning Hakoda against her. 

She lifts her chin. “Yes,” Katara says, in front of her family, old and new, and strangers and the spirits themselves. “I’ve been practicing. With Zuko’s help and sparring, I’ve come a long way.”

The fact that Zuko had spoken to the Avatar favorably about her abilities warms Katara’s chest. 

“Indeed. I plan to be in the capital for an extended stay after your wedding. Politics,” Aang rolls his eyes goodnaturedly, “But I’d like it if you’d come by my apartment in the city. With my help, you’ll be a Master in no time.”

Katara jumps at the chance to train with the Avatar, delight making her glow. To her utter embarrassment, Sokka choses this time to pipe up.

“That’s all well and good. But I’d like to know why, oh wise and powerful Avatar, didn’t you stop the war sooner?” Sokka interrogates, arms crossed over his chest. 

Avatar Aang just smiles.

“I could tell you the whole story, all about my adventures over the years, but it would take many hours that we don’t have. I will simply say this. All happened as was meant to happen and all will happen as is meant to happen. You cannot rush destiny. Or run from it.” At this, Aang gets a little wistful, staring off into the distance. “Eventually,” he continues, “it always catches up with you.”

“Nice going,” Katara hisses to her brother, who is rubbing the back of his neck guiltily. “You made the Avatar sad.”

Zuko hides his grin as the siblings squabble, but Avatar Aang snaps back to the present and shushes them with a laugh. 

As the servants serve dessert, Aang lifts his glass and the table falls silent. “Let us not get distracted. We are here to celebrate the union of Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, heir to the Dragon Throne, and Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, daughter of Chief Hakoda.” He gestures to them, smiling warmly. “Fire and water. Yin and yang. Balance. Your union brings hope of a united future, a better world for us all. To Katara and Zuko!”

“To Katara and Zuko!” the table echoes.

_ Hope _ , Aang said, the same word the shopkeeper from the jewelry store used, the one who told her about the beads. Hope. 

She looks at the faces of her loved ones. Gran-Gran looks at her proudly. Hakoda’s eyes are shiny with unshed tears, with love. The men from her tribe clap and cheer, Sokka the loudest. Yue reaches over Sokka and touches Katara’s hand, like she did a month ago (it feels like a lifetime now) back at the South Pole when they were still discussing Zuko’s proposal. Next to Gran-Gran, Master Pakku, who Katara thought would now hate her since she’s admitted to practicing waterbending against his wishes, even nods at her respectfully. 

Later, Pakku tells her about his change of heart, which began thanks to Gran-Gran, and how he will in the future make use of all waterbenders, regardless of gender, and train them equally in both the North and South. Later, Hakoda will apologize for listening to Pakku for all those years instead of her. He will tell her how proud he is of her and her bending, and ask for her forgiveness, and she will reply that there’s nothing to forgive. 

But now, among the celebration, Katara just blushes happily and finds herself reaching for Zuko’s hand under the table. He meets her halfway, entwining their fingers together. They fit perfectly, like they always did. 

* * *

“Do you still hate me?” Zuko blurts out, breaking the silence.

They’re alone for the first time all day, out on the balcony off the dining room. Dessert is over but the parents are having drinks, the little ones all gone off to bed. Those in the space between childhood and adulthood — Zuko and Katara, Sokka and Yue, Mai and Azula and Ty Lee — have been invited to stay, but, once the adults were drunk enough, Katara had grabbed his hand and dragged him out onto the balcony. 

Katara looks over at Zuko, heart twisting in her chest. “I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you.”

Either her slight smile or her words seem to frustrate him. Zuko looks away, frown deepening. “That’s not how it felt.”

Are they talking about last night or the last six years? Katara isn’t sure. Probably both.

“I know,” she says quietly, copying his posture and leaning her arms on the stone ledge, looking out over the twinkling lights of the dark city. “I’m sorry, Zuko.” She pauses, taking a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking a lot today. And I think I just have this...thing about people leaving. My mom — she didn’t leave us of her own choice, obviously — but she’s still gone. And then my dad left to go to war for years...and Sokka’s always been better at dealing with it all than I am. I used to think I cared more than him, about mom especially, but now I think I’m just…” 

_ Broken _ , she doesn’t say. Katara almost stops, but the wind carries the salt of the sea to her senses, and the closeness of water gives her strength. 

“And when you left me at the South Pole…” she sighs. “I don’t know what I expected you to do. It’s not like you could stay with us forever. Iroh’s your family and you had to go with him, I know that now, but I was just really young and — I was hurt, and hurt that you weren’t exactly who I thought you were. I thought...I thought you were mine.”

There are fire lilies in pots decorating the balcony, and she brushes her fingertips absentmindedly against the petals. There’s so much life in the Fire Nation; she’d thought it might be a barren desert, but, from what she’s seen, it’s lush with tropical vegetation. In the last month, even with barely leaving the palace, she’s seen more green than in her previous seventeen years. She still misses the snow and ice, but Katara’s beginning to love it here. 

“I am,” comes Zuko’s hoarse whisper, and Katara’s head snaps up.

“Last night,” he rushes to say, “what I said about Princess Yue wasn’t — and Mai and I aren’t — ”

In the moonlight, he looks unraveled, desperate. She puts a hand on his chest.

“I know.”

Zuko gulps air, looking out into the darkness. “My mom left me too. Not died. Just...vanished. So I understand,” he says. “I understand that anger.”

Katara steps closer to him, fingers lightly coming to rest on the edge of his scar. “Is that when you got this?”

He flinches but doesn’t pull away from her. “No. That was...my father’s doing.”

She’d started to suspect as much, but horror still swells in her throat. Horror and sorrow. There are no words she can think of that are appropriate for what he’s been through, for how her heart aches for him, so she just pulls him into her arms. She used to hug Zuko back when he was with her in the South Pole all the time, but he’s taller and broader now, that much bigger than her that he can rest his cheek on the top of her head. She breathes in his familiar scent as he wraps his arms around her and the rest of the world fades away. Katara has to blink away tears for him, for her, for them and all of their pain. 

“I missed you,” she murmurs, low enough that she’s not sure he’ll even hear.

But Zuko does. “I’ve missed you too, Raindrop,” he tells her.

After a minute of their embrace, the sweetness melts into something else. Zuko’s hand slides down to her lower back to hold her against him more firmly. Katara lifts her head from his shoulder and he rests his forehead against hers. Heart pounding, she slides her hand up his chest, along the strong line of his jaw, and into his dark hair. 

His amber eyes simmer in the low light, hot as lava. Something in her lower belly pulses. 

The moment is broken when a boom of Iroh’s laughter comes from within the dining room, reminding both of them of the fact that the others that are a short distance away, only separated by a curtain. Before untangling himself from her arms, Zuko brushes his lips against hers, the barest of touches that makes her feel wild.

“Can I come see you tonight?”

Breathless, Katara nods. She remembers Emia earlier in the day telling her about the bridal tradition of sleeping alone without any of her possessions to give her time to think about her new life the night before her wedding. Alone probably means no visitors, which means she should probably tell Zuko not to come to her room tonight, but Katara has never been very good at doing things she’s supposed to do.

Hand-in-hand, they go back into the dining room to bid everyone goodnight. Emia is waiting in the hall outside the dining room and leads Katara back to her room as Zuko goes in the opposite direction. They both glance over their shoulders as they walk away, and share a smile.

* * *

After bathing her and helping Katara into her nightgown, Emia bows and leaves. Katara’s a little surprised to hear the door lock from the outside, but shrugs, figuring Zuko can find a way in even if he has to melt the lock. 

Katara knows what's coming. Well, she  _ thinks _ she knows what's coming. She’s never actually had sex before, but the promise of it had been in the air between her and Zuko on the balcony. And she wants it. Wants him. 

She says a little prayer to the spirits, hoping she’s not violating some ancient Fire Nation rule by having Zuko over tonight and figuring that if it was truly a big deal, then Zuko wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place. She lays on her bed with nothing to distract her, trying to breathe evenly, for what seems like hours. 

After a while, a noise comes from the open window. She bends water from the basin on the dresser into her hands and stands, but it’s only Zuko that steps through the curtains, dressed in all black with his blue mask covering his face. He pulls it off, giving her a lopsided grin.

She raises an eyebrow. “You’re too good for doors now, huh?” 

He shrugs unapologetically, fixing the curtains so that they once more cover the window. “I figured they’d lock you in.”

“They did.”

“Exactly. And one lock isn’t anything to two powerful benders, but people would know come morning. We’re less likely to get caught by servants this way. They gossip, you know? And your whole family is in the guest wing.” Zuko sets his mask on her dresser. “Which won’t be a problem after tomorrow.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’ll be in the room attached to mine. We’ll be free to do as we please.”

Katara’s heart skips a beat, then begins to race. “Oh,” she says, trying to sound casual as she picks at an invisible thread on her blanket. “That’s good.”

Sensing her nerves, Zuko approaches, gentling tipping her chin up. “We don’t have to do anything, tonight or otherwise, that you don’t want to do,” he reminds her.

“When have you ever seen me do something I don’t want to do, Sparky?” she responds, which makes him smile. “But thank you.”

Katara touches his chest like she’d done on the balcony earlier. This time, there’s no heavy robes, only one layer of black between her fingers and his skin. Even through the fabric, he feels warm. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispers, not daring to look him in the eye. “But I want this. I want you, Zuko.”

He lets out a ragged breath that ghosts heat over her cheeks, thumb tracing her bottom lip. “You have no idea how much I want you.”

And then, to show her, Zuko leans down and kisses her. It’s like fire, his kiss, burning her up. Feeling feverish, she opens her mouth and brushes her tongue against his, making him groan into her mouth. The sound makes her feel heady and brave, and she tangles her fingers in his hair, pulling it out of the top knot as they tumble backward onto her bed. Zuko also has his hands in her hair, her loose braid having come undone easily. 

Zuko lets her mouth go to kiss her neck. Nobody has ever kissed her there before and she shivers as he sucks and licks and makes little lovebites on her skin. 

“So beautiful,” he mutters, hand hot on her waist. 

She wants to say something, maybe that he’s beautiful too because he is, but she’s not sure if guys like being called beautiful, or if he would deny it because of his scar — before she can figure any of that out, Zuko’s making his way into the valley between her breasts, pulling down the neckline of her nightgown. She sucks in a sharp breath and he pauses.

“Is this okay?” His voice is even rougher than it usually is, deep with desire, and it makes her squirm.

“Yes, yes.” She frantically nods. “New but good.”

Zuko smiles, one of those rare bright smiles that lights up his face, and it makes Katara’s heart lurch.

_ I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you _ , she thinks, a statement which is crazy and impossible and true. 

He leans down to kiss her lips, hands still exploring her breasts. His thumb brushes over her peaked nipple and she moans a little, fisting his hair and lifting one leg to wrap around him and bring him closer. Braced on one forearm beside her head, Zuko shifts between her thighs, and suddenly there’s something heavy against her hip. She knows what that is, had felt it when she made out with Jet that one time. Hesitantly, Katara reaches down Zuko’s body to touch him through his trousers. 

He gasps softly, breathing heavily against her ear. Pleased with his reaction, Katara repeats the motion, but he stops her from doing it again. She’s about to protest, but he kisses the corner of her mouth and sits up, saying something that includes “clothes” and “off” to which she happily complies.

As Zuko undoes his belt and takes off his tunic, she pulls her nightgown off and tosses it to the side, letting it fall to the floor. She watches Zuko in the candlelight, the muscles under his pale skin move as he unbuttons his trousers. Completely bare, but for once not ashamed, she sits up and presses a chaste kiss to his shoulder where a small silvery scar — one from a sword, not a burn — rests. Once he’s nude like her, he takes her hand. She looks down at their fingers together on the blanket. His are long and pale, contrasting against her small, tan ones. 

They get under the blankets and the sheets. They’re still holding hands, her right and his left on the pillow beside her head. She expects him to push into her, can feel his cock hard against her stomach, but its Zuko’s fingers that touch the wetness between her legs. His right hand works her, one finger and then two, thumb flicking against her clit as she pants out his name. He’s kissing behind her ear, curling his fingers inside her, and the coiling ball of heat in her stomach explodes. Zuko puts his mouth over hers to stifle her cries.

“Good girl,” he says against her lips, and it makes her shudder, prolonging her orgasm.

Dazed, Katara whimpers as he moves, but he doesn’t leave the bed, just shifts himself until she can feel his hardness.

“It might hurt a little,” Zuko softly warns her, “but tell me if it’s too much.”

“Okay,” she agrees.

As he fills her up, Katara’s eyes go wide. It’s an entirely new sensation, being full like this, and there is some discomfort in being stretched, but none of the horrible pain she’s heard about. Zuko settles all the way in, the plane of his chest holding her in place, keeping her from floating away. She loops her arms around his neck, and, because she feels like it, bites his shoulder. Zuko moans, hips beginning to move, in and out. Sparks fly up her spine, and she lifts her hips to meet him halfway. He guides her into a steady rhythm, and it starts to feel so good that Katara wiggles and squirms uncontrollably. 

“Just like that,” Zuko rasps. “Spirits, you’re perfect.”

“Kiss me,” she tells him, and he does, pulling her legs around his waist.

It slides him deeper somehow, and Katara reaches down to rub her clit, then a little further down, feeling the place where he splits her open. It sends them both over the edge. The wave crashes over her, and Zuko, sweaty and warm and touching her everywhere, lets out a strangled noise, hips losing their rhythm as he spills inside her. 

After they’ve cleaned each other up in the bathroom, made easy by her bending, they curl up together in bed. Katara had been worried he might leave to go back to his own room, but Zuko throws an arm over her waist and falls asleep almost instantly, nose in her hair. She yawns. The smart thing to do would be to kick him out so that the servants don’t discover them together — and naked — in the morning, but she doesn’t want to. She’s sleepy and the bed smells like sweat and sex and them, and it’s dark now, the candle having burned out. This moment with Zuko is precious and she doesn’t want it to end, no matter the consequences tomorrow. 

Also, she reasons with herself, what are they going to do? Yell at the future Fire Lord? Now  _ that _ would be funny.

Smiling to herself, she reaches down to lay her hand over where Zuko’s is, and drifts off to sleep.

* * *

Closeby, a fire rages, and a dark figure watches it from the shadows, watches as Prince Zuko’s bedroom is engulfed in flames. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is the mysterious figure who is trying to kill Zuko? Leave guesses in the comments!
> 
> And, if you didn’t catch the reference, Meng is the fortune teller’s assistant in the 1x14 that has a crush on Aang. Her age is obviously adjusted for this AU. Interestingly, the VA for Meng is actually the same one for Toph.


	9. The Morning After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Zutara week, babes! Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter, hope you all enjoy. Get excited...the wedding is coming in the next chapter!

Sometime before dawn, Zuko is woken by screaming. Instinctively, he pulls Katara against his chest; he can feel her jolting awake seconds later when another scream pierces the air. He smells smoke. He smells fire; not the kind that brings life but the kind that burns hot and red with rage. 

Katara looks at him, hair loose around her face and rumpled from sleep, eyes weary and uncertain. “Is this another dumb wedding tradition?”

Zuko swallows thickly as the sound of pounding footsteps comes nearer. “No,” he responds grimly. “It’s not.”

They’ve reluctantly gotten up and have managed to somewhat dress themselves—Katara has thrown on her nightgown and Zuko is buttoning up his trousers—when the door to her bedroom rattles. Zuko and Katara sink into bending forms, prepared for a fight.

“It’s me,” Sokka says through the door, his voice high and frantic. “Katara? Can you hear me? The door’s locked.”

Relieved, she straightens. “I’m here, Sokka, I’m okay! The maid locked me in, part of some Fire Nation wedding thing.”

“Move, Ponytail Boy, let a Master work,” comes another voice. Is that Toph, the Avatar’s granddaughter?

Somehow, the little earthbender is able to twist and mold the metal lock, and the door bursts open a moment later. When Sokka comes barreling inside, he grabs his sister into a tight hug, noticing Zuko over her shoulder, who prepares himself to get punched or maybe even have a boomerang sent toward his face. To his surprise, Sokka pulls Zuko into the hug as well.

“Thank Tui and La you’re here, Zuko. I’m just going to go ahead and pretend you guys were talking about politics all night, ‘kay?”

“I think,” Toph says cheerfully, hands on her hips, “the lesson we’ve learned today is that sex saves lives.” She turns to Zuko. “We thought you were roasting like a komodo chicken in that fire,” she helpfully explains.

Katara’s brow furrows. “Fire? Someone started a fire in the palace? What’s—?”

“Someone started a fire in Prince Zuko’s bedroom,” Avatar Aang tells them, appearing in the doorway. He looks older somehow than he had last night, all the humor and warmth gone from his face. His mouth is pressed into a troubled line. “The guards are putting it out as we speak.”

“In my bedroom…”

Any embarrassment over being caught in Katara’s room vanishes in place of mounting terror. _Somebody’s trying to kill me_ , Zuko realizes. _Again._

Toph’s words from a moment ago finally sink into his bewildered, sleep-addled brain. _“We thought you were roasting like a komodo chicken in that fire.”_ Despite the heat, Zuko shivers. He remembers what burnt flesh smells like, what it feels like. If it weren’t for luck, he’d be burning alive right now.

Someone tucks their hand into his elbow, squeezing gently. When he glances up, it’s Katara’s blue eyes he sees. _I’m here_ , the gesture seems to say. _You’re not alone._

He takes a deep breath. “Any clue as to who started the fire?” Zuko asks Aang.

The Avatar hesitates, sympathy softening his features. After a second too long, long enough to make Zuko’s stomach twist into a sickening knot, he eventually admits, “We aren’t able to locate your sister.”

* * *

After the fire is out, after the palace has gone into lockdown and everyone has been accounted for except for Azula...well. Katara doesn’t need any more evidence than that. Zuko’s sister is the one responsible for this whole mess, and Katara’s going to make her pay for it. 

She knows she’s not the only one who suspects Azula is guilty, but everyone else seems to be tiptoeing around it for Zuko’s sake. But the facts speak for themselves, and, when Zuko says he’s going to go look for his sister, Katara can’t hold it in any longer.

“You know she’s probably long gone by now,” she tells him, exasperated.

They’re in the Fire Council meeting room where everyone staying at the palace, both guests for the wedding and residents, have gathered. With so many people there’s a lack of seating, so small groups of people have developed into circles sitting on the floor. Her father, Gran-Gran, and most of the other present Water Tribe members are across the room, but she, Sokka, and Yue are with Zuko, Toph, Avatar Aang, and Suki, who is formerly the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors and currently Aang’s private bodyguard, along with Mai and Ty Lee. It’s still early, slices of pink sky coming through the skylights and windows, and most people are yawning, too tired to be afraid of whoever set fire to the prince’s bedroom. Katara, not having gotten much sleep the previous night, is both tired _and_ afraid; it is certainly _not_ the morning after she’d fantasized about, and she feels a little mad at having been robbed of cuddling with a sleepy Zuko in bed.

Right now, he’s frowning, and right at her. “You don’t know that. She might just be hiding, or hurt, or—” At a loss for words, he turns to Mai and Ty Lee, hoping they’re going to come to his rescue in defending his sister. 

“I did really think she’d started to change,” Ty Lee whispers, eyes wet as she holds Mai’s hand in her lap.

Mai says nothing, but her normal gloomy expression seems even gloomier. Her dark gaze is staring out the window, and she won’t meet Zuko’s eyes. 

Zuko stands up, jaw tight as he clenches his fists. “She _has_. I know she has.”

Sokka sighs. “Listen, buddy, I know it’s hard. But—”

“I know she’s still,” he waves his hands around, trying to find the right words, “not nice. But...but she isn’t capable of things like this anymore, she wouldn’t murder anybody. She wouldn’t murder _me_. She’s changed.”

It’s the fear talking, and the exhaustion, that makes Katara say, without thinking, “She’s Ozai’s daughter. She’s not going to change that much.”

She realizes her mistake a second too late, after the betrayal has already crumbled Zuko’s expression and he’s replaced the hurt with a mask of anger. 

“And I’m his son,” Zuko simply says, voice quiet and cutting, before departing from the room through the double doors, slipping out while the guards are distracted.

Thankfully their argument didn’t carry too far with all the other conversations going on in the room, but everyone in their small circle is now staring at Katara. Her face goes red. She has to bite the inside of her cheek hard so that she doesn’t start crying. 

“We should go after him,” Mai mutters. She hauls a sniffling Ty Lee to her feet and the two set off.

Katara watches them go, missing Zuko’s warmth from when he’d been sitting next to her only a few minutes ago, and has the sensation like something is slipping through her fingers. A tear glides down her cheek.

“Katara, it’ll be all right,” Yue murmurs comfortingly, scooting closer to touch her shoulder. “He’ll come around.”

Katara gets to her feet, making up her mind. Determination washes away her sorrow. “Maybe. Maybe not. All I know for sure is that I don’t want to waste another six years. It’s my turn to show him what he means to me.”

“What do you want to do?” Sokka wonders, looking up at her. 

“We’re going to find Azula. Zuko thinks she’s innocent, and I trust him. So if she’s hiding or lost or being held somewhere, let’s find her. If anyone wants to stay here where it’s safe, I understand, but I could use help.” 

Toph jumps up, grinning. “I hate sitting around anyway. Let’s get some action.”

To Katara’s amazement, the rest of the group rises as well, even Avatar Aang, who looks more like his joyful self.

Sokka smiles at her. “I think we’re all in, sis.”

Taking a deep breath, she nods. She feels a little nervous with all of them looking at her expectantly, but she finds she’s stronger than she gives herself credit for. Her voice is calm and clear, unwavering, the tone of a leader, when she responds, “Good. Let’s go.”

* * *

They catch up to Zuko, Mai, and Ty Lee in the library. Iroh was reluctant to let so many people leave the safety of the meeting room, but since the Avatar promised to remain with them, the Fire Lord permitted their group out to roam the palace. He did warn them that the guards had searched everywhere, both the royal palace and the gardens and the grounds beyond, and found no one—not Azula and not the fire-setter, if they are two separate people. Katara really hopes they are. She doesn’t want Zuko to lose another family member. And, if she’s being honest, she likes the thought of second chances, of redemption, and likes that Zuko has a similar sentiment. He believes the best in people, even though he believes the worst in himself.

In the library, Zuko is hurriedly taking books and scrolls and trinkets off the shelves in a shadowy secluded corner. When Katara, Sokka, Yue, Toph, Aang, and Suki approach, he looks over at them in surprise, then over glances at Mai and Ty Lee where the two girls are perched on the edge of a reading table. 

“We didn’t tell them to come,” Ty Lee replies to his unasked question. “Promise!”

“We came on our own,” Katara says, meeting Zuko’s uncertain gaze. “To help you find your sister.”

Her sincerity must come across through her expression or her words, because Zuko’s shoulders relax like a great weight has been taken from him, the hardness leaving his face. Wordlessly, he crosses the small nook of the library they’re in and scoops her into his arms, crushing her to his chest. Katara hugs him back even tighter, emotion swelling in her throat as her eyes sting. 

“Thank you,” he whispers roughly in her ear, just for her, and then steps back to say the same to the others. 

“Yeah, man, of course. Innocent until proven guilty, right?” Sokka gives Zuko a friendly clap on the shoulder. “Now, remember I’m still with you, but mind explaining to us why you’re in here taking all that junk off the shelves?”

“It’s a secret door. Not many people know about it, and Azula always used to hide in here during hide-and-seek when we were kids, so I thought I’d check.” 

“And you two thought lounging around would be a good way to help?” Toph demands of Mai and Ty Lee.

Unimpressed, Mai levels the little earthbender with a bored look. “We’re not firebenders. Only firebenders can open the door.”

“You could at least help him take the scrolls off,” Suki points out.

Ty Lee shrugs, flipping her braid over her shoulder. Somehow, despite everything going on, her hair is still immaculate. “Does it look like we do manuel labor?”

Now that Zuko has help, they’re able to empty the bookcase in no time. Mai and Ty Lee slip to the floor, coming to join the semi-circle. 

“Is there a lever of some kind?” Aang asks, peering at the plain wooden shelves. “How does it open?”

“Like this.” 

Zuko steps forward, a flame in his palm. With one hand, he begins to climb the shelves like a ladder. The top of the bookcase, like all the others in the vast room, is decorated with a dragon’s head, and Zuko feeds the flame to its open mouth. The dragon’s eyes glow red momentarily as the mechanism whirls to life. The bookcase swings open as Zuko drops to his feet, revealing a dark and narrow staircase.

Toph crosses her arms. “Couldn’t you have just shot a fireball up there?” 

“It needs to come directly from your hand,” Zuko replies, shrugging. “That’s how it knows you’re a true firebender and not just throwing fire at it.”

Sokka frowns. “But how could your sister be in here? The stuff was all on the shelves; Azula wouldn’t have been able to come in, close the door behind her, and then reshelve everything from the inside.”

“It reshelves itself somehow. Always has.”

Trying to rationalize Zuko’s answer with science, Sokka considers this with a troubled look on his face. Katara remembers when Sokka would go on rants about her “magic powers” in childhood, and even last night, the way he’d been flabbergasted to learn that Ty Lee really believed in auras, not to mention how Aang’s wife was a fortune teller’s assistant. Katara has to hide her smile at her brother’s grumpy expression.

Yue puts her arm through his. “Just go with it,” she tells her husband, who sighs dramatically. 

Toph steps ahead onto the first step of the staircase, her bare feet shifting on the stone. “I can hear heartbeats.”

With that, the gang pushes forward into the blackness.

* * *

The staircase is narrow, and only two people can go at a time. Somehow, Zuko finds himself walking beside Toph at the front of the group, him lighting the way with a flame in his hand and her doing her foot-seeing thing that he still doesn’t really understand. 

“You know,” she conversationally begins, “you’re not as bad as everyone says.”

“Thanks,” Zuko responds drily, keeping his gaze on the shadows ahead.

“We’re friends now,” Toph announces, completely serious to his mounting amusement. 

“Are we?”

“Yup. Which means I have to give you a nickname.”

“Katara calls me ‘Sparky.’ No one else can, though.”

“What if I call you… ‘Sparkles’!”

“Absolutely not.”

“Hotpants?”

“No.”

“Flamin’—”

He cuts her off. “No.”

“Spicy—”

“I think I hear something,” Zuko says, desperate to distract the relentless earthbender. 

She stops, halting the whole group. The light chatter dies out. 

“Me too! This way!” Toph instructs, darting the rest of the way down the staircase.

At the bottom is a tunnel leading to a doorway into a small room that Zuko and Azula used to play in when they were young. He thinks it was a sort of shelter that was abandoned once a more sophisticated hiding place for the royal family was developed. Zuko hasn’t been here in years, but nostalgia has to wait—he hears noises. 

They all hurry but Toph is the first one at the door. She tries the handle, and, finding it locked, crushes the metal with a flick of her wrist. 

Zuko prepares himself for all sorts of nightmares on the other side of the door. His sister, lying in wait and hoping to ambush them. His sister, dead on the ground. His sister, captured and in pain. He prepares himself for the fact that Azula might not be here at all, that it might only be rats scurrying. 

Zuko feels Katara’s hand on his back, and forces himself to breathe.

He is prepared for a lot, but he definitely _isn’t_ prepared for the scene that is actually revealed a second later when Toph kicks open the wooden door and they all rush into the room.

Face reddening, he quickly averts his eyes as Azula pulls on her clothes. The teenage boy with her does the same, pulling on his kitchen attire as his hands shake.

“P-P-Prince Z-Zuko,” the kitchen boy stammers, bowing deeply once he’s clothed. “We were just, uh…”

“What are you morons doing down here?” Azula demands, shooting all of them venomous looks, looking every bit as regal as the princess she is even barefoot, in only a black nightgown, and with her hair in such disarray it would be laughable under different circumstances. 

Used to Azula's threats, Ty Lee stiffles a giggle into Mai's shoulder.

“Looks like you were right, Hotpants. Your sister’s not trying to kill you, she’s just hooking up with the servants,” Toph declares, patting him on the shoulder.

Zuko _almost_ wishes his sister was the one trying to kill him. Almost. He thinks he might pass out from humiliation and brotherly indignation. Either that or throw a fireball at the kitchen boy.

“It’s only fair,” Sokka says to Zuko, looking more than a little smug, “considering how I found you and _my_ sister this morning.”

Zuko glares at him as Katara hits her brother in the arm.

“This place just screams romance,” Suki mutters, scanning the dusty, underground room, the only comfort being the one blanket Azula and the boy must have brought with them.

“I’m not allowed a moments peace anywhere else,” Azula snaps. “I’m always watched and analyzed. Akemi and I just wanted to spend the night—”

“Whoa, down girl,” Sokka steps in front of Suki when it looks like Azula might pounce. “We’re not trying to like, um, slut-shame you or whatever. We’re here because of the fire in Zuko’s bedroom. When everyone was rounded up earlier, you were the only one missing.” 

Avatar Aang is looking at Akemi questioningly, hands tucked into his orange robes. “They counted the staff, too."

"They did," confirms Katara. "Why weren’t you missing, Akemi?”

“I wasn’t supposed to work yesterday. I wouldn’t have been on the schedule,” he hastily apologies, looking totally miserable.

Ire melting into confusion, Azula’s gaze jumps from face to face. Her golden eyes land on Zuko. Eyes that look exactly like his, he knows. Looking at Azula has always been somewhat like looking in an upside down mirror, a thing that can be terrifying. He could have been just like her if things were different, just a little different…

He pushes those thoughts away, and goes forward, stopping a foot away from her. 

“Do you know anything about the fire?” Zuko asks her. He readies himself for the answer, tightening his muscles like he’s about to take a punch to the gut.

Azula’s eyes flick all over his face. For some reason, they linger on his scar. “No, I don’t. I...I want the bad stuff to be over between us.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Toph whispers to Katara, but everyone hears.

“Not to ruin the moment,” Sokka pipes up, even though his wife is shooting him a look. “But if Azula isn’t the one who set the fire...then who did?”


	10. The Wedding (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, I promised you guys a wedding but I had to split up the chapter because it got so long. Don't come after me, okay, I promise the actual wedding is next chapter! It will be posted soon. Love you all.

Nearly an hour after they find Azula, the palace guards get an anonymous tip and proceed to arrest Zhao, the former leader of the Fire Nation army, who’d been hiding since the fire in Capital City. After Ozai’s defeat years ago, Zhao refused to recognize Iroh as Fire Lord and was jailed after making threats against the royal family. They learn from a messenger hawk that Zhao escaped the Boiling Rock late last night, and upon capture in the city, Zhao confessed to setting fire to Zuko’s bedroom. After Iroh explains to everyone that Zhao has been taken back to prison, the weary guests and servants and palace residents cheer, happily filing out of the Fire Council meeting room to return to their own rooms or duties. 

The little group surrounding the Avatar doesn’t share in the celebration.

“After all that...kind of a let down, huh?” Sokka scratches his chin.

“Anticlimactic,” Suki agrees. 

“Ugh,” says Toph, stomping her foot. “I wanted to fight someone!”

Hakoda beckons for Katara and Zuko to join him and Iroh and Gran-Gran across the room. As they heed the request, hand-in-hand, Katara tries to put a pleasant look on her face, tries to be glad that Zhao has been taken away, that the danger is over, but something still doesn’t sit right with her. She tries to push those feelings away, blaming it on lingering nerves.

“The palace guards have apprehended the person responsible for all this,” Katara’s father says. “The Fire Lord has expressed the wish to continue with the ceremony tonight, but, of course, it’s up to the two of you.”

She blinks. In all the commotion this morning, Katara completely forgot about the wedding.  _ Her _ wedding.

“I want to go through with it,” Zuko replies immediately, voice firm. “We can’t let Zhao win. He wants me to cower, be scared, but I won’t give that to him. The world is counting on us to be a symbol of peace and unity, and I intend to give it to them. And I…” he shyly glances at Katara, “want to marry you tonight.”

“I want to marry you, too,” she whispers, cheeks growing warm. To Iroh, Gran-Gran, and her father, she says, “I don’t want to wait. Everything is already planned, and the people of the city are so excited to celebrate with us. Zhao can’t ruin this day. I won’t let him.”

Gran-Gran, who is standing next to Katara, takes her free hand and squeezes. “We are so proud of you.” She smiles at Zuko. “Both of you.”

As Zuko walks Katara back to her room so they can both begin getting ready, she asks, “Why did Zhao target you? Why not Fire Lord Iroh?”

He shrugs. “Zhao’s hated me ever since I beat him in an Agni Kai. I was young and he was supposed to be one of the best firebenders in the nation; he was embarrassed, I suppose. Zhao even volunteered to captain the ship that brought me to the South Pole all those years ago, just to see me get exiled. My eye was already wounded, but that didn’t stop him from hurting me more on the journey.”

Remembering how she found him when she was eleven, anger fizzles in Katara’s stomach. “Your broken ribes?”

“Yeah,” Zuko replies, eyes distant. “That was him.”

They round the corner and arrive in the guest wing. At her door, Katara pauses, turning around to face him. He looks troubled, but like he’s trying not to show it. 

She reaches up to cup his cheek, purposefully picking the scarred side. Once, he might have pulled away, or shied from being touched there. Now he only sighs, closing his yellow eyes and leaning into her palm. He trusts her, she realizes. Katara strokes her thumb along his cheekbone, emotion swelling in her chest. She remembers last night, remembers thinking that she’s falling in love with Zuko, but now, as the hazy midmorning light bathes his pale skin in gold, as he bends closer, eyes still closed, pressing their foreheads together, Katara knows she does. She’s never been so sure of anything.

But that word — love — is a heavy one to speak out loud. She’s afraid of shattering the moment, of everything changing, so she doesn’t speak her feelings. There’s time for that later. They finally have time. 

She kisses Zuko chastely on the corner of his mouth and then steps back, hand going to the doorknob.

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

He nods, a smile softening his features. “See you tonight, Raindrop.”

* * *

To Zuko’s utter disgruntlement, he learns that Avatar Aang has sent Toph to be something of a bodyguard as an extra precaution as he prepares for the wedding ceremony. 

“There are two guards outside the door, as always. You can tell your grandfath — ”

“Look around, Sparkles, you’re getting ready in your sister’s room because yours got torched. What’s the harm in having me around? It’s not like I can see you getting dressed.”

“I can take care of myself! I’m a Master firebender, you know.”

“And I’m a Master earthbender. Ohhhhhhh...is that it? You don’t think an earthbender is worthy of being your bodyguard? I thought you guys dropped the whole being prejudice thing, or was that a lie?”

Zuko turns to her, surprise and frustration filling him. “What? Of course it’s not a lie, I don’t — ”

But he realizes Toph is smirking, and that he’s lost this battle. 

Zuko sighs. “Fine. Whatever. You can stay.  _ Only _ you.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai sweep into the room. 

“Ugh! What are  _ you _ guys doing here?”

“It  _ is _ my room, brother,” Azula points out, arching a perfectly plucked brow. 

“Your mom isn’t here to dress you as is custom, so...we’re helping!” Ty Lee helpfully explains, smiling brightly at him even as he glowers.

“I don’t care about customs. I can clothe myself, thanks.”

Before Ty Lee can protest, Toph pipes up. “Sorry, but we need them. You and I have about one good eye between us, and we need you looking your best for Katara.”

The mention of Katara calms him some, enough that the girls are able to convince him to let them all stay. Ty Lee pushes him into a chair and to braid his hair as Mai opens the box from the tailor that contains his wedding robes. Toph jumps up on the windowsill and begins to tell some ridiculous story of how she learned earthbending from badgermoles, and before he knows it, they’re all laughing at her jokes.  _ I wonder if Sokka knows he has some comedic competition _ , Zuko thinks, a smile stretching across his face. 

After Ty Lee finishes with his hair, before he can stand, Zuko feels a hand lightly touch his shoulder. He looks up at his sister. Her expression is unreadable as she considers him. 

Breaking the moment, Ty Lee calls, “Azula, come help Mai and I — ”

“She would be really proud of you,” Azula tells Zuko, before turning away to go over to her friends. 

_ You two _ , he thinks, want to say, but the time isn’t right and he knows Azula wouldn’t believe him. Not yet. She still has a long way to go, a lot of healing to do. They both do.

But such thoughts make him sad and today, no matter how disastrous it started, is his wedding day; he’s going to be do this, marry Katara, and be happy. Even if it kills him. 

* * *

Most of Katara’s things burned along with Zuko’s bedroom. The fire easily spread from his suite to her adjoining one, the one she never slept in but the one where the servants had placed her trunk and filled the closet with her new dresses only yesterday. Katara doesn’t care about the clothes or the random knick knacks she’d brought from the South Pole or even her singed waterbending scrolls.

It’s Zuko’s letters, the ones she’s never read and only now has the nerve to, that make her heavy with sorrow. They’re burned, all of them, beyond repair. When Emia somberly presents her with the crispy remains, Katara almost weeps. She can only pick up fragments:

_ — _ _ please don’t be angry, Raindrop, I _ _ — _

_ — _ _ miss you _ _ — _

_ — _ _ dreamed of you last night _ _ — _

_ — _ _ visit? Or would you want to visit here? We could _ _ — _

_ — _ _ reply? Just so I know you’re all right and don’t _ _ — _

But from one letter, the last, there’s a complete sentence that seems to be almost untouched, though the rest is blackened and falling away from her fingertips. 

_ I’m not going to give up on you, Katara. _

Tears fill her eyes. She’s seated on a stool in front of the bathroom mirror as Emia puts shimmering oil in her hair, and her shoulders draw forward as the urge to sob overwhelms Katara. The maid coos sympathetically and tries to comfort her, but when that doesn’t work, Emia gets Gran-Gran.

Katara gratefully allows herself to be pulled into her grandmother’s warm embrace. 

“I — I don’t know why I’m upset. I’m just so — ”

“Hush, now. Allow yourself to feel. To restrict your emotions is as futile as trying to restrict the ocean. Let them ebb and flow as they will.”

Katara continues to cling to Gran-Gran like a child, face buried in her shoulder as she trembles, trying to get herself under control. 

“You’ve been very brave. I hope you know how proud we are of you, Katara.”

“I don’t feel very brave. I was so afraid for so long, of Zuko and what he means to me…”

“None of that. You’re here now; that’s in the past.

Sitting up quickly, Katara presses her knuckles to her eyes, fresh tears of frustration springing onto her cheeks. “It’s not! It’s not, because I still haven’t told him!”

Unbothered by her dramatics, Gran-Gran gently tucks a strand of dark hair behind Katara’s ear. “That you love him.” It’s not a question.

Miserable, Katara closes her eyes. She hears Gran-Gran get up and shuffle behind her. A moment later, the brush Emia had been using resumes its task. 

“You’ll get sparkles on your hands,” Katara weakly protests, but her grandmother only starts to hum, a tribal song that, combined with her brushing, reminds her of being young and of home. Of her mother.

Most of Katara’s memories of her mom are lost to time; when she thinks about her early childhood, the woman that she pictures is a blend of the things people have told her about her mom and an imagine of herself later into adulthood. But, though her face can no longer be conjured from the depths of her mind, Katara remembers her mother’s voice perfectly. She sung to them a lot, Katara and Sokka, before bed, and in village ceremonies or festivals, and sometimes to the moon or the sea. 

As if reading her thoughts, Gran-Gran says, “Your mother cried on her wedding day, too. She was nervous and happy and overwhelmed, like most brides. Like you.” She meets her eye in the mirror. “You look just like her, you know. Beautiful.”

Katara smiles, sniffing. “Even with puffy red eyes?”

“Yes. But why don’t you press some ice to your face to reduce the swelling?” 

She does, bending water from the sink into small cubes of ice that fit under her eyes. The cold is a relief to her heated cheeks. She feels worn out from crying, but also strangely clearheaded. Thoughts of Zuko turn from romance to anxiety—not about the marriage, but about the unease she felt when Iroh told everyone Zhao had been sent back to prison. An anonymous tip, the guards said. Katara frowns. How convenient. And if Zhao, as per the information Iroh received from the Boiling Rock, only escaped last night, how did he poison Zuko at the tea shop a month ago? In all the chaos with the fire, it seems everyone but Katara has forgotten about the other assassination attempt. It puts her on edge, but what she told everyone earlier is true—she isn’t about to let anyone ruin this day, for her or the nation or the world. 

She watches her own gaze turn steely in the mirror. Katara lifts her chin, determined, confident. 

Whoever else is trying to kill Zuko is going to have to go through her first. 


End file.
